


Crimson

by qqueenofhades



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 12:04:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 223,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qqueenofhades/pseuds/qqueenofhades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Professor Killian Jones, a mysterious Irish scholar, and Emma Nolan, a college sophomore from a sleepy little town in Maine, cross paths at Boston College. Neither of them could have imagined what would happen next. ***COMPLETE***</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Oh, _shit._

She had _not_ signed up for this.

Considering that her summer had been spent back home in Storybrooke waiting tables at Granny's like a drudge, and she had been so excited to get back for her sophomore year that she'd headed to Boston a week early and crashed with her friends, wandering around to various hipster garage bands and "alternative" boutiques, dealing with the corresponding surfeit of "alternative" young people, Emma had been completely convinced that she would avoid any hint of a second-year slump. She'd taken to her first year at Boston College like a house afire, juggling classes and social clubs and sports games, plus more than a few interested suitors. She'd applied to the usual suspects of pricey, upper-tier Northeastern liberal arts colleges – Sarah Lawrence, Bard, Middlebury, Vassar, Brown, Tufts – but BC had given her the best financial aid package, and with parents who were, respectively, an elementary school teacher and the manager of an animal shelter, that sort of thing had to come first. Noble professions, but not very lucrative.

Thus, she had become an Eagle, and now was the time when she was expected to start thinking about her major. Emma had diddled around with a few art electives during her freshman year, but nobody was going to mistake her for the reincarnation of Michelangelo any time soon, and she was keen to avoid the impression of being yet another film student who skulked around dark corners in the theater, making shorts about depressed urbanites who wanted to cut their wrists. For no good reason, she'd always had a fascination with medieval history – castles, sieges, battles, kings, queens, princesses, and scheming political factions galore – and had decided, at least for the present, to give it a whirl. Maybe it wasn't the most practical option, but she was smart and she worked hard; she'd get a job regardless of what it said on her diploma. And so, she had happily registered for her classes, set her alarm ten minutes early, and even read half of the assigned textbook.

 _She was gonna kick sophomore year's ass._ No distractions. No diversions.

At least, that was what she thought until she walked into "Eighteenth-Century Europe I: 1700-1750," and got a hot look at Professor Killian Jones.

If _that_ was what was awaiting her, Emma thought that _someone_ should have had the decency to supply her with a warning. (Seriously, what were campus gossip websites for, if not stuff like this?) Not only was Professor Jones much younger than she thought (early thirties) he was also _gorgeous._ Cliché tall-dark-handsome was bad enough, but add in the blue eyes, the adorably awkward tweed jacket with elbow patches, the plaid shirt, and the lilting Irish brogue – well, pretty much every female in the class was done for. Emma was well aware that she was not the only one sitting on the very edge of her seat, staring fixedly at the professor as he welcomed them in, went over the syllabus, advised them to buy the course texts somewhere else than the bookstore because "it's a bloody ripoff" and patiently answered a lot of inconsequential questions from the swooning freshman girl in the front row. It was a seminar-sized class, eighteen students, so there'd be plenty of opportunity to talk. That accent. Holy _fuckballs._

He was also wearing a wedding ring. _Dammit._

(Not like she was thinking anything like that! Just because he happened to be the most beautiful man she'd ever seen in her life did _not_ mean he was suddenly available for anything on the DL! The poor guy probably just wanted to do his job without causing traffic accidents and splintered relationships every time he set foot outside!)

Nonetheless, after class was finished, she found herself drawn like a magnet up to the front of the room, where he was whistling tunelessly as he erased the blackboard and forced a sheaf of papers into his complaining leather briefcase. "Professor Jones?" she squeaked.

He turned around and gave her a brilliant, dizzying smile, enough that she surreptitiously reached for the desk to steady herself. Oh _god_ this was bad. "Aye? Hello. What was your name again, lass?"

 _Lass,_ seriously. Did people still _say_ that? "Um – Emma. Emma Nolan."

"It's nice to meet you, Emma Nolan," he said, offering his hand for a shake. "Always appreciate a student who takes the time to introduce herself. Means she'll be more engaged with the course, really thinking about what we're learning. Tends to write better papers, too, and after the dreck I have to slog through, I quite enjoy it."

(Of course that was why he was happy she'd introduced herself.)

"I, um, haven't heard of you?" Emma ventured.

"Well, this is my first year actually. First class, even. Fresh out of Trinity, in Dublin. Hope I haven't cocked it up too badly yet."

"Um, no. It's just, you know – " Emma struggled to think of something to say that was devastatingly urbane and witty. Oh Jesus, why hadn't she at least skimmed the _New York Times_ editorial page this morning? "This stuff is – so – so interesting, and you – you know, growing up in a little podunk town in Maine, and – "

He had been listening to her with a polite smile, clearly seeing all kinds of through her lame attempt to be interesting, but at this, his expression sharpened. "I'm sorry, did you say – Maine? Whereabouts in Maine?"

"Storybrooke," Emma said, abashed, knowing that to someone as cool and worldly as he undoubtedly was, this must sound like the equivalent of "Bumfuck." "It's the most boring place in the world, honest, you probably never want to – "

"Storybrooke," Professor Jones repeated, half to himself, unconsciously twisting the wedding band on his finger. "It's _real?"_

At that, realizing she was staring, he glanced up and gave her a graciously self-effacing smile. "I'm sorry. It's just – my – my significant other, she is – was – known to a man who used to live there, or so she said. I could never find any record of it, I didn't think it was a real place. This is terribly personal, I'm sorry, but do you happen to know a Robert Gold?"

"Actually…" Startled, Emma was about to say _yes;_ she had known Mr. Gold all her life. The reclusive pawnbroker was a mystery in Storybrooke, but it was well known that he had half the town (if not all of it) safely tucked in his back pocket. He'd always been cordial to her and her parents, though, and had taken something of a liking to her; he told her she had _potential_ (though what he never defined, leaving her to wonder if he was one of _those_ creepy old men) and was oddly set on getting her to come back to Storybrooke after she graduated. But how was it that Professor Jones just so happened to…

"I'm sorry," she said. "You were asking for – your wife? Does she know anything else about him?"

Professor Jones smiled tightly. "Milah was never my wife, and yes, I suppose you could say she did. They used to be married."

That startled Emma even more; she'd never heard of a Mrs. Gold, even from the vigorous and irreverent town gossip at Granny's Diner. Gold was both a distinctive figure, limping through the streets with his cane, and a fiercely solitary one. He lived entirely alone in his expansive, elegant mansion at the town limits, the kind of place kids dared each other to ring the doorbell and run away, or even to go up to on Halloween. Local legend held they had never found the kid who'd toilet-papered it that one year. It was horribly rude, but… "Used to?"

His smile was even tighter. "She's dead."

"Oh… I'm… I'm so sorry." Emma felt a flush burning up her throat, into her cheeks. Here she was trying to impress him, show him how wonderful she was (hah) and instead she ended up making him talk about his dead – non-wife? But then why the wedding band? Maybe they'd been engaged.

How the hell did he know Gold?

What did he mean, he didn't think Storybrooke was a real place?

More than slightly discomfited, she grabbed her backpack and fled.

* * *

"At least he's not your lit professor." Neal Cassidy crammed half a panini into his mouth and gulped it down without the apparent intercession of chewing. "That would be just too cliché."

Emma made an indeterminate noise intended to express both agreement with this sentiment and condemnation of his poor form at table manners. They had carved out a corner table at Hillside Café, the perpetually crowded campus eatery, and she was nursing a by-now-lukewarm caramel macchiato, as she'd forgotten about drinking it. Other matters, such as confiding about Professor Jones, had taken precedence. "I guess."

"Whatever. I mean, he's your prof anyway, he's completely off limits." Neal loaded up another fistful of panini, waving with his greasy free hand at some of his dudebro buddies from the hockey team; this being BC, they were the Big Men on Campus, and Neal liked to remind Emma how lucky she was to be dating a guy with such social clout. This was more or less accurate, as Neal was her boyfriend only for lack of a better word to call him; it usually meant they hooked up after Eagles football games, but only if the Eagles won. If they'd lost, Neal was usually too busy moping and drinking off-label beer, or picking out dismal mumblecore songs on his secondhand acoustic guitar. He said he was a senior, but he'd also said he was a senior when she met him last year as a freshman. Emma suspected "time off" for unspecified personal reasons, or perhaps having to repeat; he was an easygoing slacker who bummed her notes off her for any exams they happened to share. She couldn't figure out how he'd gotten into the school in the first place. Probably his dad had donated a crapton of money to the alumni fund.

Likewise, Neal's in with the hockey team mainly depended on his ability to supply them with cheap weed, a little side business that he still thought Emma didn't know about. Both he and the student athletes were scrupulously careful to cover their tracks, but it was part of the reason that he always had money to take her to shows and clubs and Red Sox games, and Emma wasn't interested in putting an end to a good thing. To protect herself, she hadn't listed Neal as her boyfriend on Facebook, and figured that if the school and/or the feds ever came calling, she'd easily be able to play innocent. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and could do the angelic puppy-dog thing like nobody's business; people liked to tell her that she looked like a Disney character or a fairytale princess. Neal, with his perpetual guilty hangdog expression, would be busted in a nanosecond, but it would be all smooth sailing for her.

"Yeah," Emma said in answer to Neal's earlier remark, reminding herself that Professor Jones _was_ completely off limits. It was in the honor code and everything. "But it was really weird, I mean, he asked me about…"

She stopped, not sure if she wanted to get into this, and took a sip of her macchiato. It tasted cloyingly sweet with all the caramel clotted up, but she swallowed it anyway. The downer of being quote-unquote with a guy like this was that you could never be too sure where your secret would end up. But how could this hurt? "This guy back home, just this weird old guy."

"Yeah?" Neal wasn't paying attention, scrolling through his phone and guffawing at something on his newsfeed.

"Yeah. Robert Gold."

Neal dropped his phone.

"Hon?" Emma looked at him, confused.

"Uh… how about that, huh?" Neal dove under the table to retrieve it, and took a long time coming back up. When he did, he disposed of the rest of the panini with terminator efficiency, and grabbed his backpack. "I, babe, I'm late for my class, I should have written down my schedule in my planner better. I, uh, I'll see you later."

"Hon?" Emma repeated, bewildered, and not only for the fact that she was certain Neal had never owned a day planner in his life. But he was getting up and sprinting like someone had told him the dorm inspector had come a week early. She stared at him as he beat feet out the door and away up the path, wondering just what kind of silly juice everyone had been drinking recently, then sighed and made an exit of her own.

* * *

Her Core professor _would_ be the hardass who assigned a paper on the first day of class (he was, however, a nearsighted and cranky little Jesuit of at least eighty, meaning she didn't have to worry about the same sort of things she did with Professor Jones) and Emma detoured to Bapst Library after class; she always felt supremely important walking up beneath its sedate gothic spires. By the time she'd thrown together an outline and checked out some books, it was pushing six PM, so she headed to Lyons in anticipation of meeting Neal for their usual dinner date (by which was really meant his chance to copy her notes). But while she waited expectantly, tapping her foot, he failed to show.

Thinking she would have heard about it if there was a significant drug bust, Emma shrugged, texted him just in case, and went back to her reading. She waved to a few of her friends, then decided she would head back and spend the evening surfing the Net, maybe watching movies; she liked to go out, but only with Neal, and what kind of loser went partying on the first night of classes anyway? So she collected her stuff and headed out.

Emma had a quad suite in Walsh, the sophomore dorm on lower campus, which she shared with three of her friends: a vegan, an English major, and her roommate, Wendy James, who was glamorous by virtue of being from London and had at least been considerate enough to apologize when she sexiled Emma last year during finals week. Wendy was the first friend that Emma had made here, the kind of friend you had weird inside jokes with and marathoned geek TV shows with and crawled under blankets to eat ice cream with and share stories about scandalous men and badly behaved women. Wendy had a considerable repertoire of these; Emma had on occasion made up a few of her own. She wasn't totally a wet-behind-the-ears small-town virgin – she and Neal _were_ having sex, for God's sake, she could probably ace the condom-on-the-banana freshman mortification ritual – but Wendy's international life experience and considerable roster of people in the London literary world that she seemed to be on first-name terms with _was_ intimidating.

Emma slowed as she approached the residence hall, fumbling in her purse for her key card. As she did, however, she noticed a dark figure darting out the side door, and hastening away into the trees. The lighting was spotty, but she thought she recognized – she was almost certain she did – the enigmatic Professor Killian Jones himself.

This was startling, but hardly worthy of an FBI investigation. He _was_ a member of the BC community, he could have had any kind of legitimate business in the dorms. So she shrugged it off, swiped her card, and headed inside, up the stairs to the third-floor suite.

Her roommates were out, and she flipped on the lights, throwing her backpack on the living area couch and heading down the hall to her room. She opened the door ("Wendy" and "Emma" carefully fixed up by the RA) – and stopped.

It was the _cleanness_ that tipped her off. She had only been _in situ_ for three days, ever since her dad had helped move her in on Saturday (she may or may not have accidentally said something about Neal, and she could just feel David Nolan hankering for a convenient excuse to run into this chump his only begotten daughter was dating) but she'd already managed to make a mess of it. Housekeeping was not her forte, no matter how much her mom had nagged her and tried to bribe her to clean up her room by raising her allowance (Mary Margaret had finally given up). And everything on her side of the room was… neat.

All of Wendy's stuff looked to be untouched. Emma frowned, paced to the window, glanced out, and paced back. She flipped down the cover of her bed, and up again. Obviously, whoever it was hadn't left a note.

It was just a hunch. She couldn't be sure.

But she was.

Professor Killian Jones had been here, in _her_ room. And he was looking for something.


	2. Chapter 2

Over the next several days, Emma did her best to forget about the strange start to the semester, an undertaking which was not assisted by the fact that she had Professor Jones' class again on Wednesday, and spent the entire time so involved in dithering that she completely forgot to take notes. If he _had_ been up to no good in her room (nothing appeared to be missing, but was it something small she wouldn't notice?) she didn't think she should confront him and raise his suspicions, but she didn't want to go on playing ignorant when something was clearly fishy. He, for his part, treated her completely as he had before, which was to say calling on her when she raised her hand and smiling when he told her that she'd done well at the reading. He knew that David Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" was not the most riveting item to ever grace a college sophomore's over-stimulated eyeballs.

Emma was inordinately flustered by his praise, doing nothing to uncomplicate her scattered mental state, and almost walked into the wall on her way to meet Wendy and Alice, her English-major suitemate, for coffee at Hillside. When she squeezed into the table with her macchiato, her expression must have been wild enough to attract comment, as they said together, "What?"

"Oh, just this…" Emma struggled to think how to describe him. "My history teacher. Professor Jones."

"Ohmigod!" Alice clapped a hand to her mouth. "Is he the same one that teaches my comparative lit class? OH MY GOD!"

Emma eyed her narrowly. "He does literature too?"

"Apparently. He's the newbie, he doesn't have tenure, so he gets dumped with the crappy required courses they can't find enough TAs for?" Alice shrugged, but she was clearly far more interested in discussing their shared distraction. "That guy, _sheesh._ You have _no_ idea how many fans he already has. Nobody plans to skip class for any reason. That's a talent."

Emma fought away a completely irrational pang of jealousy. If there was anything female on the entire BC campus that _hadn't_ noticed Professor Killian Jones, they should be checked post-haste for a pulse. She was absurdly tempted to say that she thought he had been in _her_ room, but that was a can of worms she definitely didn't need to open. "Fan club, huh? Someone should print up T-shirts."

"Yeah, we're having trouble thinking of a name." Alice adjusted her ashy blonde ponytail. "Killian's Klan?"

Emma winced. "Um, definitely not."

"Jones' Junkies?"

"No."

"Professor Hot Stuff's Hoochie Mamas?"

_"No!"_

"See!" Alice protested, as Wendy choked on her double tall skim latte. "It's hard, okay!"

"Changing the subject," Emma said hastily. "Have either of you guys seen Neal? I, uh, told him something after class on Monday, and he kind of flipped out. He's been MIA ever since."

Alice pursed her lips. "And that's really such a loss?"

"Hey," Emma said, stung. "No judging me in the boyfriend department, okay? Neal may be kind of a – " _loser –_ "free spirit, but at least he can function without industrial quantities of psychotropic drugs."

Alice looked miffed in turn. Her boyfriend, Jefferson, was one of the chief culprits in the skulking-film-student department, whose avant-garde short last year had won a prize for being artsy and groundbreaking (Emma thought they'd given it to him because they were afraid of what he'd do if he didn't get it). His most recent project was called _Adventures in Wonderland,_ in which he wandered the rundown districts of Boston with an expensive camera, taking black and white photos of poverty and desolation in the first world. It would probably net him a lucrative fine-arts scholarship one day soon.

"That's different," Alice sniffed. "Jefferson is a _genius._ Neal is…"

"Campus weed connoisseur number one?" Wendy suggested.

"Hey! Keep your voice down!" Emma glanced around shiftily, in case any RAs or school administrative officials happened to be in the vicinity. She trusted them both, but she still didn't need that little tidbit becoming public knowledge. "I just was wondering, all right?"

"No," Alice said.

Wendy paused, then shook her head. "Nope."

* * *

That weekend was the Eagles' first home football game of the season. BC was opening up against Virginia Tech, which meant they were probably going to be used to wipe the floor, but everyone was excited anyway. Last year, Emma had gone to all the games with Neal and his connections for prime tickets, away from the general student section; despite being a Catholic school, BC could turn into alcohol-soaked harbingers of doom with the best of them when the fur was flying between the gridiron lines. Nobody ever had to worry about being killed, however, and Emma made plans to tailgate with Wendy, Alice, Jefferson, and his crowd before the game. Then they'd hang around and see if they could bum extra tickets off someone.

It was as she was getting ready that she discovered what was missing. She was pepping herself up with school spirit: her crimson-and-gold BC sweatshirt, her eagle earrings, the red ribbon for her hair, and suddenly remembered the necklace her parents had given her last Christmas. It was an antique and she was usually picky about where she wore it, but it was a little gold swan that looked like an eagle if you squinted at it at the right angle. She opened her jewelry box, reached in – and found nothing.

Confounded, Emma stared. She picked up the box and jangled it hopefully, like an incompetent prospector panning for gold, and still didn't find it. Pawing down the back of her dresser yielded the same result. It was gone.

It was always possible that Wendy had borrowed it without asking, as the two of them were fairly lax about sharing clothes and jewelry, but not very likely. Emma wracked her brain trying to think what about it would be noteworthy in any aspect. Her parents had given it to her as a boost for her self-esteem; she'd been moping about how she felt like the ugly duckling at Storybrooke High School and nobody ever noticed her. But they had reminded her that the ugly duckling grew up to be a swan, and –

Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit.

David Nolan had purchased that necklace for his daughter at Robert Gold's pawn shop.

Was she really prepared to corner her history professor and accuse him of busting into her room and stealing her jewelry? Could she even be sure that he had done it? It seemed unbelievably stupid in a dozen different ways, especially for a guy who held a Ph.D from a prestigious university – Trinity College Dublin wasn't exactly a slacker emporium. Why risk his job in the first week of getting it, to break and enter a student's dorm and take – take this? Why?

Emma continued to stand there, completely baffled, until she heard a yell from the suite common area. "Hey, Em! Guess who showed up? Change of plans!"

She grabbed her scarf and jacket – it had been unseasonably cold for Boston in the early autumn, they were going to get the first big snowstorm of the year sooner rather than later – and hurried down the hall. There, to her immense surprise, she beheld her itinerant boyfriend, looking penitent and holding out a fistful of tickets. "Hey, um, so can I come tailgating if I give you these?"

"Neal!" Emma said, surprised and relieved. "Where have you been?"

He shifted from foot to foot. "What do you mean? I've been around."

"You split on me on Monday and I thought that you – "

"Drop it," Neal interrupted. "I was just startled about something. It's fine."

"But you didn't – "

"I said _drop it, okay!"_

Emma flinched. "I'm sorry," she said meekly. "I was just worried."

Neal emitted a mumpish grunt, clearly the extent of the commentary he was prepared to make on the subject, and offered her his arm. Still hurt, but eager to stop him from running away again, she took it, and they and the gang headed out to Alumni Stadium, which was buzzing with excitement. They enjoyed the tailgating, the schmoozing, and eventually the game, which went almost as badly as expected – the Eagles, however, did nearly pull off a thrilling comeback, and so Neal wasn't as depressed as he normally was and feeling frisky after. He lived off-campus, in a grotty little apartment with three Russian knuckleheads, two of whom were named Alexei Pavlovich; Emma had always suspected them of being in the Mafia. She'd overlooked them in the past, but right now, after his weird behavior and total lack of explanation, she didn't feel like it. "Actually… not tonight."

"What? Babe, I want to make it up to you. I bought those fruit-flavored condoms and everything."

Emma winced, as Wendy and Alice had definitely overheard that. "I have a lot of homework," she lied, the college-student equivalent of "I have a headache." "I just don't think – "

"Aw, come on," Neal wheedled. "You're not mad at me, are you? We don't have to talk about it. I want to show you that I – "

"Um, no, really. I have so much homework. Really, a – " Emma struggled to think of a plausible story. "So much that I – that I – "

"She does," said a new voice from behind her. A familiar, Irish-accented voice. "I can vouch for it. Three hundred pages of Adam Smith to read _and_ a research project to pick. Very busy."

Emma went hot. Emma went cold. Emma spun around to see Professor Jones, standing behind them in a long double-breasted overcoat, a crimson-and-gold scarf thrown nattily around his neck. He gave every appearance of having casually stumbled across them in the post-game scrum, and shrugged self-effacingly, as if to acknowledge that indeed, they were speaking to each other outside of class. "Sorry, Miss Nolan. Just thought I'd back you up."

"I," Emma stammered. "Um, hi."

"Hey, Professor." Neal, having clearly put two and two together to arrive at a rather unpleasant four, flashed his best crooked smile. "Uh. Just straightening stuff out."

Professor Jones' dark blue eyes remained fastened on Emma's. "Is everything all right?"

"Fine," Emma and Neal blurted in unison.

"All right then. The lass has said she's quite busy, so I'm sure you're taking that for an answer?" Jones raised one dark eyebrow. "As she said. Another night."

Neal shot a confused, defensive glance between them, apparently unsure who deserved it more, as if in some sense that they might be ganging up on him. But he was unwilling to go so far as to confront a professor to his face, and backed down. "Yeah, you're right. For sure. It's fine. Good night, Emma, Mr. Jones." And with that, pulling his hood up against the fine, drizzling mist that had moved in, he sloped away.

Professor Jones watched him go with a narrow expression. "I don't like the way that young man looks at you, Miss Nolan."

Oh my God. Was he actually giving her _dating_ advice? Was it a fatherly kind of thing to say, or something else? Was he looking for an excuse to get her alone? Was she supposed to confront him, ask him why he'd needed to steal the pendant that at one point had belonged to Robert Gold? Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God.

"Are you heading back to campus?" Professor Jones asked.

"I, yeah, I am actually."

He cocked his head at the deepening darkness. "May I walk you?"

He didn't need to. BC was a safe place, there was a shuttle, patrolling security, the whole nine. And if it was true that everything with two X chromosomes was swooning for him, she didn't want to set herself up to be poisoned in the dining hall or ambushed in the laundry room. But before she could remember all the really excellent reasons to refuse, her mouth was saying stupidly, "Sure."

He smiled then, a sweet and almost shy smile that did horrible things to her innards, and for a heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to offer his arm. He didn't, however. They just started off at a Catholic nun-approved two feet apart, strolling sedately side by side back toward the main campus. It was so beautiful right now with its leaves turning golden, its gothic architecture and groomed green lawns, its lights glowing cozily in the crisp New England twilight. But Emma noticed it only tangentially. Her mouth was dry as a bone. Now was the time to tell him that she was onto him.

Right?

"Have any ideas for your research project?" Professor Jones asked, as they walked.

"I… it's kind of lame, but I was thinking about doing something about the European privateer industry and the whole Caribbean piracy thing. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum, you know?" She blushed. "But I could make it interesting, I think. Analyze it in terms of the mercantile system and eighteenth-century economics and nationalism. And colonial theory. It would be fun."

"Pirates." He smiled at her, a wide, open smile that made his teeth unbearably white in the falling violet dusk. It was a smile of pure amusement and delight, as if he was looking at her simply to look at her and was thrilled by the simple fact of her presence. Nobody had ever looked at her like that. _Neal_ had certainly never looked at her like that. "Good form."

Really. Who _allowed_ him to say things like that, while looking like that, in that voice? It was every kind of wrong in the world to feel what she did right now: hot-faced, light-headed, weak-kneed, barely able to stop herself from reaching out and grabbing his arm. Her stomach was rioting with butterflies. She shoved her hands into her pockets.

After a minute or so in which they had walked in silence, Professor Jones nodded his head at the dining hall. "I'll leave you here, my dear?"

 _Oh God._ "S-Sure," Emma squeaked. "I – Professor?"

He had started to leave, but turned about quizzically. "Aye?"

"I…" No, no, not the time for this, definitely not. But something about him completely shredded her self-control. "Do you… were you… I thought I saw someone who looked like you at my, at my dorm the other night. And I thought that you were there, and it might just be that something…" At his massively confused expression, she trailed off. "Did you…?"

"I'm sorry?" He looked blank. "Did I what?"

"My necklace," Emma blurted out. "My swan necklace. It's missing."

He blinked, still completely nonplussed. "If you think you've been robbed, I'd suggest taking it to campus security. Or asking your roommates, some can be quite light-fingered and – "

"My parents got it from Robert Gold's shop."

He hesitated. Then he said, "That's very interesting, Miss Nolan, but I still can't see how it's any of my business. I'll bid you good night now? Good night." And with that, he turned and strode away.

Emma silently watched him go. There was a faint sensation on the back of her neck, like fire ants, and she knew why. All her life, it had been a strange, inexplicable skill she had, like ESP or guessing things correctly too many times for it to be luck, or seeing people in your dreams that you met two weeks later. Anyone else would have bought that, smooth and convincing as it was.

But not her. She was now sure of it.

Professor Killian Jones was lying.


	3. Chapter 3

"Look," Wendy said, linking her fingers together and twisting her hands over her head. "How I see it, you have three choices. One, you can go to the uni administration and tell them that you think Professor Jones has been nicking your stuff, and hope your word can stand up. Two, you can get Neal and his Russian roommates to do a bit of retaliatory breaking and entering – an option I would not at _all_ advise, by the way. Or three, you can send me to go talk to him."

Emma frowned. It was pushing 2 AM, but they were both still awake, sitting on their beds and holding a council of war; after the events of the night, she had to ask _someone_ for help. "What do you mean, _talk_ to him? Is that code for something? He's still a professor, and – "

"Not really," Wendy reminded her. "You and Alice are both taking classes from him, but I'm not. And I don't even have ulterior motives – although _you,_ my dear, were rather quick to suspect me. But he teaches literature as well as history, he's from Ireland, and so it's almost certain that I know some of the same crowd he does. Besides, he doesn't know I'm your roommate, so he won't be on his guard."

Emma had to admit that this made a great deal of logical sense, but something in her still niggled at the idea of sending her beautiful, glamorous, well-read, well-traveled British roommate off to dangle before Professor Jones' eyes like a fat and juicy worm on a hook. She was honest enough to admit that she knew full well why this was, and once more severely instructed her uncooperative emotional faculties to shut this shit down. She needed to maintain enough of a functional professional relationship with him to take his class, pass his class, obtain the return of her necklace, and get the hell on with her life, and that was it. The end.

"I have to admit, I don't really want to send Neal and his possibly current KGB commandos in there," she said instead, trying to change the subject. "That would _definitely_ backfire."

"Yes." Wendy was eyeing her curiously. "Emma, darling, you know I'm not trying to judge you, but have you ever asked _why_ he feels the need to live with three large and terrifying Russians?"

"I – no." Emma had just taken it for granted as one of Neal's eccentricities, the things they didn't talk about. All she'd cared about was that he had a place, and wasn't sleeping on the banks of the Charles River or something, and Wendy's question made her feel stupid; she knew she should have asked it long before. But she hadn't wanted to scare him off. She'd been a wallflower at Storybrooke High, the kind of girl who had to grow into her looks, awkward and self-conscious and not naturally friendly, and it wasn't until she got to college that she'd really blossomed. Among the several boys who had expressed interest, Neal had been the most persistent, and the only one who was willing to do something other than sleep with her and brag about it to his buddies. He _did_ do that, but he also took her places and spent money on her and made her feel like a grownup with a real social life, and since she'd never had any kind of relationship before, she was totally clueless as to anything to compare it to.

Now that the subject had been opened, however, Wendy wasn't going to let her off the hook. "So why does he, do you think?"

"I don't know," Emma said, twisting her comforter between her fingers. "They're probably where he gets his weed from."

"And this means?"

"I don't know!" They'd always been cordial enough to her, whenever she was over at Neal's apartment (there was a curfew on the dorms, complicating the process of sneaking him out) and hence, you did not poke two sleeping Alexei Pavlovichs and one Ivan Medvedev in the eye. "Maybe he's scared someone will show up and try to rob him?"

Emma had said it more than somewhat flippantly, but the look on Wendy's face made her frown. "What? You mean he _is_ scared?"

"I can't think he's living with three ruthless bodyguards because he isn't."

"But… scared of what? Something? Someone?"

Wendy looked at her seriously. "Maybe that's something you should find out."

"But… if they _are_ in the Mafia…" Emma squirmed. She had no desire to wake up with a horse head in her bed, or to be sleeping with the fishes. "Isn't there like a don't ask, don't tell thing going on with that? And I don't even have an idea what he might be…"

She trailed off.

"Yes?" Wendy prodded.

"Okay, this is probably a reach. But – " And with that, Emma spilled the rest of the story: Professor Jones' odd reaction to hearing that Storybrooke was a real place, his (inadvertent?) revelation that he'd once been dating (engaged to?) Gold's late ex-wife, and the fact that Neal had booked it out of the café when she'd mentioned Gold's name to him. She knew the pawnbroker was mysterious and close-mouthed about anything to do with his past, and that everyone in town cultivated a healthy awe of him bordering on terror. But so far as she knew, he'd never actually hurt anybody.

"Why would Neal be scared of Mr. Gold?" she finished up, at last. "And why would Professor Jones be looking for him?"

"Quite obviously, I couldn't say." Wendy frowned. "But that's a bit much of a coincidence to swallow, especially as you said that the necklace you think Professor Jones stole came from Mr. Gold's shop. Is there any way you could ring your mum and dad and ask them if there's anything they can find out about him?"

"I – guess," Emma hedged. "But people just don't interfere in Mr. Gold's business, you know? Especially not when they owe him a favor, and everyone in Storybrooke owes him a favor. When I was a kid, something happened – I don't know what – and my family was about to lose our house, and he stepped in to stop it. My parents remember that, and I bet he does as well."

Wendy was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "I'm guessing, then, that whatever his real name is… it isn't Robert Gold."

* * *

The conversation ended after that, mainly because Emma, no matter how curious she was, couldn't keep her eyes open any longer and fell asleep in the middle of it. She woke up on Sunday morning with snow lashing against the dorm windows and the entire campus socked in; the predicted storm had rumbled in right on schedule. It was awfully early even for New England, but it was better than the slow-moving Atlantic hurricane that had sideswiped them in freshman year, resulting in the power and internet being out for a week. Bored out of her mind, Emma had gone into downtown Boston for the first time with some kids she'd known for just a few days, and they proceeded to have a midnight adventure down the Freedom Trail. It was, as a matter of fact, where she had met Neal.

Emma grabbed her coat, the long black wool one with the double buttons that her mom had bought her for her new school wardrobe (Mary Margaret had been having pangs of anxiety about sending her only daughter off alone to Boston, especially without proper apparel). With its cuffs and sharp collar, it looked very theatrical; she liked to call it her pirate jacket (appropriate in light of her project) especially when she threw on her college scarf. Thus arrayed, she headed off to Lyons to dig into a pile of waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, her Sunday ritual.

Emma was heading back to the dorms, snowflakes swirling in her hair, when it suddenly occurred to her that, it being after all a weekend, there was a fairly good chance that Professor Jones wasn't on campus. And while she _should_ wait and at least send Wendy in first to scope things out, it was possible that she could get a jump on it first.

She paused, then swung her backpack off her shoulder, fumbled in it, and pulled out her notebook, the snow leaving wet spots on the page. She flapped it open, made a grab as a raft of fugitive handouts escaped, and scooped them off the wet walkway, muttering. Nonetheless, she ran her finger along the syllabus, looking… looking…

Yes.

_**Professor Killian Jones: Stokes 302.** _

Emma straightened up, clapped the notebook shut, and wheeled around. She set off at a casual trot, glancing from side to side in case there was anyone she knew who might spot her, but it was a snowy, sleepy Sunday and there wasn't much happening on campus. She swiped herself into Stokes without incident, and trotted up the stairs to the history department's offices, heart pounding. Now came the tricky part. He'd surely locked his office before leaving for the weekend, but her godfather, Leroy, had always done his best to equip her with a roster of what he termed "practical" skills. Changing a flat tire, patching drywall, nailing a creep in the gonads, and picking locks were just a few of them.

Emma turned into the corridor, counting off numbers until she came to a halt in front of 302. Trying the knob revealed that it was, of course, secured, which wasn't any surprise. With one more glance around for unwelcome witnesses, she swung her backpack off, pulled out her wallet, and extracted her debit card. Taking one more breath to steady herself, she went to work.

It was easier than she had dared to hope. The door opened inward into a clean, dark office, and she quickly shut it behind her, reaching down reflexively to feel for the lock; to her relief, it was a push-button, meaning she could just put it back in and shut the door behind her when she left, and no one would be any the wiser. Fortunately, Professor Jones either didn't think his office contained vital enough information to install an alarm system, or he just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Either way, it was good for her.

Holding her breath, as if that would make a difference, Emma edged across the floor, looking around. Half the place was still in boxes, though most of the books had been unearthed and neatly alphabetized on the particle-board shelves; he was definitely on the bottom of the academic totem pole around here if he didn't even get actual wood. There was an Irish flag hung up over the window, but no other apparent personal effects. No family pictures, no knick-knacks, not even an embarrassing gag gift. Whoever Killian Jones was, he traveled light.

She reached his desk, which was piled with a sheaf of departmental memos, lecture notes, a dog-eared copy of _Wuthering Heights,_ and a few printed-out emails, which she nervously fingered through. There was nothing of immediate relevance, however, and she knelt down by the drawers. The first two pulled out easily, revealing files and papers, but the third drawer, the bottom one, was locked.

Emma rocked back on her heels, judging her prospects of gaining access. Nobody had barged in yet, threatening to expel her, so she went back to her backpack, feeling a bit like MacGyver, and pulled out her nail file.

This was quite a bit harder, and the file slipped out several times as she worked, the last time causing a screech that made her cringe and wonder if there were any hidden security cameras she should have looked out for. But then, after a few more moments of patient work, she heard a click, and the drawer rolled out on its own.

There was nothing inside but a fat manila envelope, which she reached in and picked up in suddenly trembling hands. When she turned it over, there was only one word on the front, written in his bold, black, elegant script. _Crocodile._

She undid the catch and heard something rattling. When she turned it over, her swan necklace was the first thing that slid into her hand.

Emma closed her fingers around it, feeling the cold press of the metal figurine on her skin. If she took it and left the drawer unlocked, he'd know beyond any doubt that she'd been here. He could punish her for it in any number of ways: go to the dean of students, flunk her project, get security involved, you name it. But if he did, he'd also have to reveal that he'd stolen it from her in the first place, and that might not be the kind of move you wanted to make after getting your first professorial job straight out of graduate school. Not to mention, if they found a file in here about wanting to kill people (was it about wanting to kill people? Oh god, was he some kind of skirt-chasing pervert who disemboweled freshmen girls in his basement and would inspire a "Based on the Horrifying True Story" film ten years later?) they might have cause to review his vita.

Besides, she almost _wanted_ him to come after her. See if he would.

Whatever it was, whatever _this_ was, it had only just begun.

* * *

Emma was as jittery as a drug mule on her way back to the dorms, expecting every second to be stopped and strip-searched for contraband. She'd left the office as unsuspicious-looking as she possibly could, but as she hadn't been able to re-lock the drawer, he'd know that someone had been in there. Would he guess it was her? There wasn't really anyone else it could be. She'd see him in class tomorrow. Would he curse her out in front of everybody?

She was so distracted that she barely got back to her room, whereupon she wandered in a circle and then finally decided to place her usual Sunday-afternoon phone call to her parents, hoping she didn't sound too much like she was strung out on meth.

Her dad picked up on the second ring. He must have recognized her number on the caller ID, as his voice was warm. "Well hello there, college girl! How are you?"

"Hey, Dad." Emma sat down on her bed, letting her head drop with a thunk against the wall. She waited until her mom had gotten on the extension, as she knew they'd be waiting to hear all about her first week of classes, and did a creditable job at sounding normal as she filled them in on as many details as she thought they needed to know. For their part, they had nothing much to report, which was as she'd expected. Storybrooke, Maine wasn't exactly a party-a-minute. Or a party-an-hour or even a party-a-year.

At the end of the conversation, however, she screwed up her courage and tried to sound casual. "Hey… so. There's something I was just wondering if you could look into for me."

"Yes, hon?"

Emma couldn't think of any way to ask without this making them suspect _something_ was up (of which, after all, they would be quite correct). "Do you happen to know if Mr. Gold was ever married?"

"Mr…" David Nolan was plainly stumped. "Not as far as I've ever heard. Why?"

"I… it came up in a conversation. Somebody thinks they knew his ex-wife, and it just took me by surprise. Small world, and all that. You, uh, don't need to mention this to him or anything. I got the feeling it was kind of a touchy subject."

"Sure, I guess," her dad said. "Is there a name?"

"I guess it would be Milah?" Emma was fairly sure that was the name Professor Jones had said. "Milah Gold? I'm going to look into it myself, actually."

"Just for the heck of it?"

"Favor. For a friend."

"All right…" It was her mother's turn to sound dubious, and Emma didn't blame her. "Well, have a good week, honey. We'll talk to you soon, okay?"

"Okay." That could have been worse, at least. She killed the call with her thumb and tossed the phone onto her pillow. Then she got up, switched on her desk lamp, and opened her laptop.

A few Google searches for "milah gold" turned up nothing: no professional references or social media, no pictures, no resume, no obituary. Emma went to the Social Security Administration website and wondered if she should file a request for information, or if they even gave out that kind of stuff to civilians. But she didn't think Professor Jones had been making it all up; the look of pain in his eyes was very real. Unless it was _A Beautiful Mind_ situation or something, and he was a troubled academic genius who went around talking to imaginary people.

"Shit," Emma said aloud, sitting back in her chair, after half an hour of increasingly fruitless searching. "You are a mystery, aren't you?"

It was, to say the least. Out of a whim, she opened a new tab and ran a search on "Killian Jones," which turned up a page from Trinity in Dublin and an unused LinkedIn account. Clearly, the guy had to have credentials from _somewhere;_ he had a job and a degree, after all. But maybe he was also one of those paranoid people who tried to live "off the grid."

Or maybe someone was after him. And maybe he knew it.

Someone like, say, Robert Gold.

* * *

Emma accomplished nothing useful for the remainder of the day, except fifty pages of the reading she was supposed to have done in time for class tomorrow. When Wendy returned that evening from whatever exciting way she had spent the day, she enquired if Emma still needed her to canvas Professor Jones for information, and seemed somewhat disappointed when Emma hastily informed her that she had handled it. After this, of course, she tried to press for details, but Emma made noises about rethinking the plan and waiting to see what happened and other such foofaraw. If she did get expelled tomorrow, she hoped Wendy wouldn't hate her for lying.

The swan necklace was hidden in an innermost pocket of her backpack, where nobody would find it unless they were prepared to take the thing apart. It crossed her mind to wonder just what he'd thought he was going to do with it. Or if there was more to it than it seemed. A clue, or a stolen puzzle piece. Her curiosity really _was_ going to kill her one of these days.

It was still snowing, so rather than trek across campus for dinner, Emma raided her minifridge for crackers, cheese spread, and a few crumbled Oreos. Then she set her alarm for the next morning, crawled into bed, and lay awake long after Wendy was asleep, staring at the ceiling.

There were four unread text messages from Neal when she woke up the next morning and rolled out of bed, none of which she felt like answering; she was still somewhat upset with him for acting like such a flake, and Wendy's questions had taken root in her, making her seriously wonder just how much slack she was prepared to cut him, and what it might be dangerous to keep turning a blind eye to. Sheltered and protected, an only child raised by loving parents in a quiet, postcard-perfect New England town, Emma had never learned the need to suspect the worst of people; everyone in her world was inherently trustworthy, could probably be relied upon in a crisis, and even if they messed up, deserved the benefit of the doubt. She'd given a long leash to all of Neal's foibles for this very reason. But a new voice was in her head, asking why. Asking if she wanted to carry on like that.

Emma shut it out, decided to see if Neal was at Hillside later as he usually was, and judge for herself if they really needed to have The Talk about Their Relationship (if so, it might be better not to do it in public). In the meantime, though her entire stomach felt like ice water from nervousness, it was time to face the music.

She somehow made it to class on time, sat in the very back row, kept her head down as Professor Jones entered the room, and suffered through the lecture, scribbling desultory notes. After all this, she almost wanted him to confront her, but the rest of her hoped dearly that this was just an aberration and would be smoothed over, to go away and never be thought of again.

When class was over, she shut her notebook and stuffed it into her backpack, preparing to make a break for it. But he caught her eye over the chattering students, many of whom liked to hang around longer than they strictly needed to, and jerked his head.

Dreading it – and yet, weirdly thrilled – she edged up, and waited as unobtrusively as was possible when she felt as if a giant strobe light was shining down on her, until they were alone, and he shut the door smartly behind the last giggling freshman. She saw him reach for the lock, and she saw him turn it.

If he _was_ into chainsaws, she had made a horrible mistake.

"Miss Nolan," he said quietly, grimly. "I see we need to talk."


	4. Chapter 4

It was Emma who broke the silence, after they'd been staring at each other for almost a minute. "All right," she said. "So talk."

Professor Jones blew out a breath, dragging a hand through his rumpled dark hair. He turned away, tension evident in every line of his shoulders, then spun back. "What were you doing in my office, lass?"

Well, there went any remaining hope of secrecy. Yet she felt almost relieved; the cloak-and-dagger stuff was a drag, and in turn, she gave him the courtesy of not playing stupid. "I was looking for the necklace you stole from my dorm room."

He blinked, badly thrown. Apparently he had still been under the impression that he'd been a lot smoother about that than he was, and for a moment, she saw something like fear in his face. They'd both just realized they were treading on forbidden ground – the knot in her stomach, the racing electricity in her veins, the way she couldn't take her eyes off him. She was close enough to reach out and touch him, fixated on the hollow in his throat where his pulse was hammering, the quick, sketching movements of his elegant, long-fingered hands. She watched them move, describe the air, the space around him, the way he turned back, the look on his face, she. . .

Hadn't heard a word he'd said.

"I – I'm sorry," Emma said, blinking. "Can you repeat that?"

He stared at her, as if trying to tell whether she was joking. He nervously checked his watch; he was probably running on a schedule, or didn't want the next class to come by and start banging on the door. As if pleading to some patron saint for patience, he inhaled gustily through his nose and then out. "I apologize, Miss Nolan. That was a bit of a mistake on my part."

"A _bit_ of a mistake? You were in my room!"

Professor Jones flinched. She hadn't thought it was possible to put him off his guard again, as sleek and composed as he was, but now she'd done it twice in two minutes. "Aye, lass, that I was," he breathed, his normally lilting accent thickening into a broader brogue, rich and dark and menacing. "But you won't be telling anyone that."

She crossed her arms, as much to steady herself as to express defiance. "Why not?"

He grinned. It wasn't one of the demure, professional smiles he employed in class, but a roguish leer, and it made her feel as if every stitch of clothing had dropped off her body. "Because you don't want me to tell anyone about your lad and his little side venture, now do you?"

It actually took Emma a moment to process this. "Are you – did you just – " Instead of backing away as she wanted to, she took another step, closing more of the distance between them, until the air sang and hummed with a lightning current. Her heart was pounding, but she couldn't be sure if it was due to his open threat to expose Neal (how the _hell_ did he know about that?) or his sheer physical proximity. "Are you _blackmailing_ me?"

He had the decency to look abashed, at least. "Miss Nolan, I apologize. That was impolitic, but not irrelevant. I have been searching for some relic of Robert Gold's longer than you can possibly imagine, and I do not desire to make a spectacle of it. Give me back the necklace, and you never have to talk about or think about this ever again."

Emma hesitated. She was tempted, of course, but she also thought that he had overplayed his hand. By revealing that he knew about Neal moonlighting as a pot dealer, he'd also revealed that he'd done quite a bit of digging into her life. He couldn't have known about her when he'd chosen to come here, as his surprise at finding out her background had been very real, but what if he _had_ known. . . what had he known?

No. There was still too much of a mystery here to let go of. And she didn't quite like what he'd said. "Give _you_ back the necklace? It's mine, it belongs to me. I could loan it to you, but if I do, you owe me an explanation. At the least."

He eyed her for a long moment, then turned away, gazing heavenward as if to implore the Blessed Virgin to send in the heavy cavalry (he was Irish, he wore a silver cross around his neck, _and_ he taught at BC. He was almost certainly Catholic). To the ceiling tiles, he said, "Justice."

"What?"

"It's really no concern of yours, my dear. But it so happens that Robert Gold is a wanted man."

" _What?"_ This rabbit hole was getting deeper all the time. "Wanted by who?"

Professor Jones' grin this time was completely mirthless. "By me."

"For what?"

"For a murder he committed many years ago and got away with scot-free. Let me ask you a few questions, if you have the time." Again that glance at his watch. _Tick-tock._ "Growing up in this Storybrooke of yours, did people ever just drop by? Did you ever have outsiders, strangers, new mates in school? Even summer visitors on holiday?"

"No," Emma admitted slowly, confused. "But we're really boring, like I said. It practically felt like the same day over and over sometimes. Nobody _needs_ to come visit – "

"Next question," he went on, cutting her off. "Does this Robert Gold of yours have an insatiable desire to make deals? Always a favor for this one, a favor for that one. Seems to be a harmless enough eccentric, but you don't want to cross him. Lives alone, I'm wagering? Never heard of a woman in his life? Likely has you or someone close to you under his thumb for something, some inconvenient little matter he tidied up in the past. And if he does, he _never_ forgets."

Emma could only stare at him in complete consternation. The description, of course, fit the pawnbroker to a tee, and sent a cold sludgy mass avalanching down her spine. "If you have a problem with him," she finally stammered, "if he really _is_ a murderer, why didn't you just – "

"Why didn't I go to Storybrooke myself?" Killian Jones finished. "Why didn't I phone the police, or the FBI, or any one of a thousand other commonsensical solutions? I would like you to ask yourself that question, my dear, and then several dozen more. I trust you've a keen enough intellect to work them out on your own. In the meantime, you may keep the swan necklace if you like, but it would be far more convenient for us both if. . ." He held out his hand.

Emma's eyes flicked to it. It was his left hand, and there was something strange about it, just visible under the cuff of his shirt. There was a faint, fading band of grooved scar tissue that completely encircled the wrist, like a deep burn or a flesh wound or. . . what _even. . ._

He realized that she was staring. He pulled it back, flicking a piece of dark hair out of his eyes, a gesture as smooth and natural as if he'd meant to do it all along, and offered her his right hand instead. But as he did, his gaze darted to hers, and there was a brief, peculiar moment of vulnerability. They knew that they had each other by the short hairs, could ruin each other's life and academic career if they opened their mouths, and yet for all the threats he'd made, she didn't get the sense that he was actually prepared to carry them out. He'd embroiled her in his plot, yes, but he was aware of the consequences. He didn't want to hurt her. He was asking her to trust him.

Emma hesitated. Then she turned, went back to her backpack, and dug the necklace out from its pocket, not entirely sure that this wouldn't lead to her being charged as an accessory for murder (why _did_ Killian – Professor Jones – want to find Mr. Gold? He'd said "justice," but that covered a whole array of possible outcomes). Yet against her better judgment, her awareness that this could be legally as well as morally wrong, out of some strange spark in her that recognized something in him (and not just his face, pretty as it was, but something that made her feel as if she was coming home) she crossed the classroom to him, opened her fingers, and overturned the necklace into his hand.

He looked at it, then at her, then at it again, as if he hadn't expected her to give it up. He appeared genuinely confused, and deeply touched, and his eyes met hers again. Their faces were very close, enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath against her skin, the ache in her fingers with her desire to reach up and curl them around the fine arch of his cheekbone, the porcelain skin and dark stubble, to trace his lips, smooth the anxiety and the ancientness from his soul. He might be only in his early thirties, but he seemed much older. She honestly did not know what would have happened next, if they had not been interrupted by a brisk knock at the door.

Professor Jones sprang back from her as if he'd been electrocuted, or as if he was waking from a trance, and shook his head. Then, turning away, he strode across the room and unlocked the door, to admit a baffled-looking colleague. "Everything all right, Killian?"

"Fine, Jim."

"My class starts in five minutes. Thought I was going to have to call security to get them to open up, or maybe I was going crazy and had the wrong day. Like those dreams when you're giving a lecture naked."

The other professor attempted a self-deprecating chuckle, but Emma saw his eyes flicking curiously to her. She was still having trouble getting her face under control, stopping the heaving breaths she'd been drawing, and it occurred to her at that moment that this was probably not the best position for a professor to be caught in – especially a professor as young, gorgeous, and already infamous as Killian Jones, _especially_ not alone in a locked classroom with a blushing blonde coed. She drew herself up and flashed as bright a smile as she could. "Everything's fine. We were just. . . discussing my research project."

"Research project," Killian repeated hastily. "Aye."

They smiled in unison at his colleague, who was clearly more baffled than ever. Then they hastened past him, made a mutual exit, and shot in opposite directions like meteors.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, Emma's life – to her own bewilderment – actually settled into something approaching normality. Whatever it was that Killian was planning with the necklace (when had he become Killian to her? She had to remind herself to call him Professor Jones) he at least didn't seem about to pull off some poorly judged casino caper, and he honored his part of the bargain to not involve her in anything else. Honored it so well, in fact, that she couldn't help feeling bereft.

She went to a few parties with Neal, but her heart wasn't quite in them, and each time he tried to get her to come home with him afterwards, she found a new excuse. She wanted to ask him about his roommates, she wanted to ask him again about Robert Gold and how he knew him (as she was now quite sure) and so much more, but she could never find anything that felt like the right time. And as long as she kept her mouth shut, Neal stayed genial and even understanding about her sudden and total lack of libido, but it was plain that he was getting annoyed. At last, the fifth or sixth time she turned him down, he exploded, "C'mon, Emma, the fuck is this really about? Is there something going on with that teacher of yours, and you're not telling me?"

Emma's jaw dropped. "What? No!" It was too fast, she knew, even though there wasn't. Not technically. "I am not sleeping with my history professor!"

"Good for you, you're not a slut," Neal said sarcastically. "But don't act like nothing is wrong, because I'm not buying it."

"Wha – " She stood up in a huff, much louder than she should have, considering they were doing homework together in the quiet area in the library. Receiving a crop of death glares from the surrounding carrels, and having no desire to treat her classmates to more voyeuristic gossip than they'd already overheard, she lowered her voice and hissed, "That's really rich! I'm walking on _eggshells_ around you right now! I can't even hint like something's wrong, or you run away and shut down and then reappear and pretend I was making it up!"

Neal stared at her blankly. "The hell are you talking about? I'm not the one with the problems. I'm just trying to live my life. You're the one spazzing out."

This was so unfair that it took Emma's breath away. She reached down and jerked her notebook out from under his arm, ignoring his squawk of, "Hey, I was using that!" As another wave of disapproving "shhh!"-s came crashing down on them, she stuffed it into her backpack, grabbed her coat off the chair, and marched away.

By the time she was heading out of the library into the gray end-of-September Friday afternoon, he was running to catch up with her, once more full of excuses and apologies. "Hey. Hey babe, calm down. Calm down, I'm sorry. Don't take things so personal, okay? It was a dumb thing to say, and I blew it. Come on, Emma, don't be mad at me. I'll make it up to you."

"Why are you always making it up to me?" Emma said exasperatedly. "Can't you just not screw it up in the first place? Look, Neal, I like you and I like being with you, but this isn't the way I want things to be. I feel like we need to take a break and think stuff over. Tomorrow is family weekend anyway, I can't hang out with you. My parents are driving down from Storybrooke to see me, and they'll be around here. So I'm definitely not partying."

Neal stared at her again, more confused than ever – and then, dawningly, horrified. "They're coming _here?_ From that place. . . back home, where you said. . ."

"Yeah," Emma said impatiently. "My parents are coming to visit me. You know, like normal functional people do? Is that all, or can I go now?"

Neal had nothing to say to that. He stepped back, still looking stunned. There was a small voice in her head that was screaming at her not to blow it, to act nice, to be a lady, that if she ruined her chance with this guy, she'd never have another, with anyone. But for once, she ignored it. Instead, she shouldered her backpack, and walked away.

* * *

Emma was woken the next morning, far too early for a Saturday, by her phone ringing and her mom excitedly telling her that they'd just crossed the Maine-Massachusetts border and would be arriving ahead of schedule, around eleven. Seeing as it was a four-hour drive from Storybrooke, and that was assuming no distractions, detours, or pointless construction projects on southbound I-95, that meant they'd left around seven goddamn AM, which made Emma roll her eyes and sigh, but secretly hide a smile. She'd oftentimes wished for siblings growing up, just because it would be fun to have a playmate (and somebody to take the heat off whenever her parents were pissed) but the upside of being an only child was that you got all the attention, love, Christmas and birthday presents, and tuition money.

Emma tossed the phone back on the night table and dozed until about 10:20, at which point she jumped up, commandeered the suite shower, washed her hair, got dressed, rushed back into her room to throw her things under the bed and make it look like she'd been cleaning, and grabbed her wallet and keys to throw into her purse. It was finally a sunny day, so she slapped on her knockoff Oakleys and headed out.

From Walsh, it was a straight shot down to the parking garage, and Emma reached it (she was pleased to note) with five whole minutes to spare. She stood hopping anxiously from foot to foot until she finally saw her dad's old brown truck (he refused to get a new one) turning in off Chestnut Hill Drive. Three minutes past eleven (surprising, as the Nolan family had never been good with time) they were joyously rushing into each other's arms as if they'd been apart for years.

Emma sniffed, did her best to disguise it, and hugged David and Mary Margaret tightly; she liked to act cool and adult at college, but she was still their little girl at heart. One of the other corollaries of growing up with no siblings was that you actually had to talk to your parents about stuff, even the weird and embarrassing stuff. At least within limits, a point that was nicely underlined when her dad let go of her, glanced around with narrowed eyes, cracked his knuckles, and said, "So, when exactly do I get to meet this Neal character?"

"David," Mary Margaret said reprovingly.

"Hey, I just think I have a right, okay?" David shrugged. "I didn't say I was going to _do_ anything, I only want to get a look at him. You never tell us anything about him, sweetheart."

"He's. . . you know." Emma waved a hand lamely. "A guy."

Mary Margaret caught her eye with a distinctly sympathetic expression, but the three of them headed up to Lyons with the rest of the students and their families; at least, those who weren't completely mortified to be seen with them. Once they'd gotten brunch and sat down at one of the many extra tables, David said, "We've been looking into Mr. Gold for you."

"Oh?" Emma tried to sound casual. "Anything interesting?"

"No. That's the funny part." David forked a large bite of scrambled eggs into his mouth. "Nothing at all, in fact. Of course, it was hard to think up a good excuse to get into the vital records office. Mayor Mills isn't really the cuddly type."

"Yeah, her?" Emma cut up her pancakes. "Hasn't she hated you for, like, ever?"

"Hate is a strong word, Emma," Mary Margaret reminded her gently. "Regina's a complicated woman, but she wants what's best for Storybrooke."

"So did she let you in?"

"Actually, no." David shrugged. "But do you remember Graham?"

"The. . . sheriff?" Emma again did her best to play this off, when in fact she'd had a hideous crush on him, the cause of much of her existential angst at age sixteen. "Oh yeah, what about him? Hasn't he always been Regina's little Polly Pocket?"

"So we thought," Mary Margaret acknowledged, "but he caught us trying to, er, let ourselves into the records office, and for some reason, he decided to help us. I'm glad he did, but frankly, I'm not sure how well he is. He says he's been having dreams about wolves, running in the forest, ever since you left town."

Emma squirmed. " _Me?_ What makes him think I have anything to do with it? I was gone last year, he wasn't having weird dreams then. Besides, how is that an appropriate thing to say to a teenage girl's parents?" Putting aside the fact of everything it wasn't appropriate to say to a professor. . . but no, she was being good and not thinking about him. "So tell me. You really found nothing on Gold?" She shouldn't have expected them to. In the event that she _was_ going to buy half the bill of goods Killian was selling about Gold being a fugitive from justice and a murderer and whatever else, owning the town would extend to removing a few inconvenient sets of paperwork.

"Nope," her dad said, "and honestly, we pushed our luck by looking even once. He found an excuse to drop by the house a few days later, all very pleasant. Wanted to tell us that he'd found the windmill, in his shop."

"Oh, that ugly thing?" They lived in a rambling old Victorian with a sign in the yard – _The Nolans –_ and when Emma was a kid, it had been accompanied with a kitschy knickknack windmill that was barely a step up from a plaster garden gnome in its tackiness value. It had disappeared when she was ten or so, around the same time that Gold had stopped their house from being foreclosed upon. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"We were wondering that ourselves," Mary Margaret said. "Until he made an off-the-cuff remark about how easy it was to find things if you knew where to look, and how it was always better to look for things from our past that should be found again, instead of digging for bodies that are better kept buried. Then he smiled politely, thanked me for tea, and showed himself out."

"Oh." Emma swallowed hard. "Yeah, I'd say that was pretty unambiguous."

"Indeed," a voice remarked from behind them. "Whatever happened to the art of friendly teatime conversation?"

All three of them jumped, Emma the most of all, nearly spilling orange juice down her shirt. When they turned, they saw exactly who she had been hoping and fearing to run into. Professor Killian Jones, as impeccably turned out as usual, giving every appearance of milling casually among the brunch crowd, smiled and said, "These would be your mum and dad, Miss Nolan?"

"Uh. . . yeah." Emma swallowed again; her pancake felt as if it had gotten lodged in her throat. "Uh. . . Mom, Dad, this is my history teacher, Professor Jones. Professor, this is my dad, David, and my mom, Mary Margaret."

"Pleasure." Killian shook each of their politely offered hands. "Aye, your daughter's in my course. Smart lass, hard worker. You must be very proud."

"We are, thanks." Mary Margaret beamed, looking slightly starstruck. Even if her mom was a happily married homemaker and squeaky-clean schoolteacher, Emma couldn't say she was surprised; she'd seen Killian's effect on unsuspecting females at close range too many times. "What class does she have you for?"

"Eighteenth-Century Europe I. I'm teaching the sequel next semester, assuming they don't fire me first." Killian laughed, as if it was all a joke, but his eyes had performed the briefest of sideways flicks to Emma, as if testing the continued confidentiality of their secret. "As well as a Victorian literature course. Keeps me busy."

"I imagine so," Mary Margaret said admiringly. "I'd love to sit you down and pick your brains on _Jane Eyre,_ if you – "

"Hon, he's probably got a lot of families to introduce himself to," David interrupted. "But we do appreciate it," he added hastily to Killian, clearly not wanting to look quite so gauche as to be spotted chasing off a suitably laurelled member of the intelligentsia. "She's a teacher too, elementary school, so we know how hard your job is."

"It's not a job if it's fun, aye?" Killian smiled. "But no, of course, we as the faculty appreciate all the sacrifices you as parents make to send your children to us. This isn't too far from home though, I gather? She said something about Maine?"

"Yes," David said. "Storybrooke."

"Storybrooke," Killian repeated. "Long drive?"

"Not bad. About four hours, straight shot up 95 to 295. On the coast, just north of Belfast."

"I see." Killian smiled again, nodding. Then he turned to Emma, bid a polite farewell, and subsided into the crowd. She tried to watch him go, but in a few moments, lost sight of him.

"He seems very nice," Mary Margaret said dreamily. "Are you going to take his class next semester? I would. I wouldn't even mind if he was reading the phone book."

"Mom!" Emma smacked her on the arm, cheeks heating. It was bad enough to be hopelessly and madly infatuated with your professor (all right, she'd admitted it, it must be a pattern in her life) but it was worse when your mom was doing the same thing. "Hello! Dad's sitting right there!"

"Dad is going to cut her a break on this one," David said wryly. "I have eyes too."

Emma made an incoherent choking noise, had to duck under the table to cough, and took rather a while about straightening up. Then they finished their brunch, and she bundled them out the door before anything of a further embarrassing nature could occur. Such as Neal. She really wasn't ready for the Neal introduction. Not now. Possibly not ever.

* * *

Emma spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday knocking around Boston with her parents: visiting the historical museums, hitting up the trendy Beacon Hill boutiques so Mary Margaret could do some shopping (mostly of the window variety, as their finite budget had already been taxed to cover the cost of the trip down here) and touring the _Constitution_ and pretending to be pirates for a photo-op, which did not endear them to the hard-nosed Navy lifer showing them around. All in all, they had a great time, and it was with sincere regret that she kissed them goodbye late on Sunday afternoon; they both had to be back in time for work tomorrow morning. "Have a safe drive, okay? Text me when you get home."

"Of course, honey," Mary Margaret promised. "We'll see you for Thanksgiving, right?"

"Maybe." As a matter of fact, Emma had a standing invitation to go to London with Wendy's family over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. It was a hell of a lot more glamorous than Storybrooke, but she didn't want to crush their hopes early. "We'll figure it out."

With more waving and blowing of kisses, David and Mary Margaret headed out, and Emma stood watching until the truck was gone. Then she turned and trotted back to her dorm, feeling pleased with herself that everything had gone so successfully. There, see. Just get the Neal situation sorted out, and her life would be back to copasetic.

She plopped down at her desk, opened her laptop, surfed to her BC email – and frowned.

The top message in her inbox was from Killian, sent out to the class at about 12:15 pm yesterday, politely informing them that due to a family emergency, they were excused from meeting on Monday. He hoped to be back in time for Wednesday's session, but matters were still up in the air. He was going to have to fly to Ireland, and appreciated their understanding.

12:15 pm.

Emma frowned, calculating in her head. 12:15 pm yesterday. Saturday. 12:15 pm was twenty minutes, max, from when she and her parents had met and talked to him in the dining hall. Twenty minutes, max, from when David, all innocence, had told him how to get to Storybrooke.

_About four hours, straight shot up 95 to 295. On the coast, just north of Belfast._

"Oh God," Emma said aloud. Her stomach was turning to ice water. She didn't know if that was what he'd needed her necklace for, if it was some kind of talisman or what (why would he need a talisman? Anyone could have driven there if they wanted to, get directions on the Internet or anything!) but the horrible truth was already crystallizing in her head.

Killian Jones hadn't gone to Ireland.

He'd gone to her hometown.

And Robert Gold – whoever, _whatever_ he actually was – was waiting for him.


	5. Chapter 5

Emma couldn't concentrate for the rest of the evening. She wandered off for a distracted dinner, then wandered back to her dorm, checking her phone neurotically for the text from her parents telling her that they were home. She got online and checked traffic and local news sites, as if in expectation of finding coverage of some horrible accident, and calculated over and over again how long she could possibly expect it to take. When it finally came, making her phone clatter and buzz on the desk as she was valiantly striving to proofread her Core essay, due tomorrow for the cranky Jesuit (he'd already warned them that he'd be marking a point off for every grammatical mistake) it scared her almost out of her wits. She snatched it, scrolled the message open, and was hitting "call sender" before she'd even read it.

After a few rings, her mom picked up, sounding surprised. "Hey, sweetie. Yes, we just walked in the door. Did you need a – "

"Hey," Emma interrupted, unable to think of any remote way to play this cool. "Hey, this is really important. I know you just got home and you've had a long drive, but could either you or Dad go out and just, you know, casually pass by Mr. Gold's house?"

Mary Margaret hesitated; Emma could hear her breathing. Then her mother said, "Honey, what _is_ this detective mission you're on? We told you at school, there was nothing to find and we don't think it's such a good idea to keep looking. Why is this so important that we – "

"I just want to see if someone's maybe broken into his house. If you don't want to do it, can you at least call the sheriff and see if Graham will investigate?"

"Graham. . . honey, we're not going to make prank 911 calls on the hare-brained idea that anyone in this entire town would be crazy enough to break into Gold's house. He's probably got a lot of other things to do, and you know that if we told him, Regina would hear about it. And – "

"This is Storybrooke, voted World's Most Boring Town eighteen years running. What else does he have to do? There isn't even any graffiti for him to clean up."

Mary Margaret's hurt was plain. "Is that really what you think about it? That it's boring?"

"I. . ." Emma hated making her parents feel bad, but her perception of their hometown had always been different from theirs. Where they seemed content to stay there, aside from a few vacations to New York for Christmas when she was a kid, she'd always had a searching, restless sense inside her, like something wasn't quite right, like she should be doing something else. "Never mind. Can you please call Graham and just ask him to make a routine patrol out there? It's important. _Please."_

Hearing the openly desperate tone in her daughter's voice seemed to make Mary Margaret relent. "All right," she said quietly. "I'll let you know." And hung up.

Emma sat tapping her fingers maniacally on her desk, heart pounding in her throat. She cursorily finished editing the essay (if there were any mistakes in there she hadn't caught, so help her God) ran it out on her crappy HP printer, and rammed a staple through that motherfucker like it had personally insulted her. Then, when she was running out of distractions (thank God Wendy was out as usual, or this would definitely be attracting attention) the phone rang again.

Emma snatched it up with trembling fingers. "Yeah?"

"Nothing," Mary Margaret reported. "There's nothing wrong. Graham drove by twice to make sure, when he heard it was you who'd asked me, and absolutely everything is fine."

"No. . . strange cars or anything? He hasn't seen anyone new in town?"

"Nope. Nobody." Mary Margaret's concern was plain. "Honey, are you _sure_ you're all right?"

"Yeah." Emma fought the embarrassing little flutter her stomach had done, when she heard that Graham had taken special care to honor her request. She didn't know what to say or do next, but one conclusion was clear. Either Killian Jones was the world's foremost expert in covering his tracks, or he hadn't actually made it to Storybrooke.

(What did that mean? Had _he_ crashed his car somewhere? Had Gold made him disappear?)

At the moment, Emma had to fight an absurd urge to grab her keys, race out, and get into her own car, a secondhand yellow Bug that she'd scrimped and saved to buy with her earnings from her summer job at Granny's. The transmission stuck, the window crank was broken, and the zero-to-sixty had to be measured with a calendar, but it did at least get her wherever she was going faster than walking. And four-hour drive or no four-hour drive, she couldn't ever remember being as gut-wrenchingly worried about someone as she was about Killian right now.

She'd also been too silent for too long, her mom's question still echoing down the phone line. She cleared her throat and coughed. "Yeah," she said weakly. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thank Graham for me, will you? I'll talk to you soon."

And with that, not leaving Mary Margaret time for another word in edgewise, she hung up.

* * *

Emma slept badly that night, and awoke red-eyed and restless, which was just a fucking great way to start a fucking Monday. She was out of bed and dressed before she remembered that she didn't, after all, have Killian's class this morning, and was tempted to sink down, discard her clothes like snakeskin, and crawl back under the covers for the rest of the day. But instead she was speared through the gut with a sickening, seductive idea. If he _was_ missing, she had to go back to his office and see what else was in that envelope.

To the accompaniment of a sleepy mumble from Wendy, telling her to keep it down, Emma grabbed her satchel and hurried out. It was the first of October, and the campus was now in the full flush of its autumnal glory, so crisp and picture-perfect that she fully expected to run into a promotional photographer working on the next glossy brochure – and, in what would have been more amusing if she wasn't in such a hurry, she was indeed corralled by just one such individual asking her earnestly to pose for a few "candid snaps." This wasn't the first time this had happened; Emma, being tall, blonde, and quite pretty, apparently made a good reason for prospective students to consider BC. She couldn't think of a good way to turn him down; besides, being a film student, he was probably one of Jefferson's buddies and Alice would want her to be nice to him. So she sat under a golden-leafed oak and pretended to read a book while he snapped a few shots, thinking the entire time how much she would like to kill him.

When that was finished, Emma gave him a fake name and bolted off, reminding herself not to run like the cops were after her as she veered up to the front doors of Stokes Hall. She bought something at the vending machine to dispel suspicion, then drifted casually up the three flights of stairs to Killian's office, gnawing at the Apollo candy bar.

It was locked again, of course, but this time she'd brought the heavy-duty stuff, the pick Leroy had given her for her eighteenth birthday (on strict injunction not to tell her parents about it). It hadn't been that hard to get in with the credit card, so this was even more cake. The door swung and clicked open, and Emma, after a nervous glance down the hall – she couldn't be entirely sure that someone hadn't stuck their head out in curiosity – sidled into the office and shut it smartly.

Killian hadn't done much more unpacking than the last time she'd been in here. He seemed to be extracting oddments from boxes whenever he felt the need for them, and then putting them back or not as it suited. It gave her the strong sense that this man had spent much of his life in flux, rarely putting down roots somewhere, always ready to pick up and move again at the drop of a hat. If he'd gotten a job here, that might imply he was intending to stay. . . or did it?

Emma swallowed down a fresh surge of nervousness, then moved across the floor and knelt by the desk, industriously picking the lock on the bottom drawer. She was relieved that he hadn't installed any more high-tech security, which meant either that he didn't fear a repeat appearance from her, thought she would be all too eager to be done with him, or that –

She pulled the drawer open, and felt her heart drop like a stone.

It was empty. Where the manila envelope had lain, there was nothing. Not even a –

Wait.

There _was_ something that made her frown and squint at it. It looked like there might be a false bottom to the drawer; a look at the outside and then the inside confirmed (possibly the first time all semester she had been grateful for the required math class she was slogging through) that the volumes didn't match up. She slid her hand in and ran her fingers delicately around the edge, groping around until she thought she found –

Yes.

A click, and the catch sprang, booting up the panel. She removed it, looked down – and stared again.

There wasn't anything here either, but what _had_ been there was extremely visible by its absence. A specially molded velvet box, like the kind you'd put a flute in, except this was no flute. It was shaped to fit a. . . she touched it as if to be sure. . . a hook.

Emma could feel her brain attempting very hard to shut down, and she struggled just as hard against permitting it. It wasn't a little fishing hook either, but a serious _hook,_ like something that a pirate would wear in a cheesy film, like a. . .

And just then, as she struggled to assimilate the evidence, it fell on her like a rock.

Oh God. This was _way_ worse than she thought. The fact that he'd labeled his file "Crocodile," the way he was convinced that Mr. Gold was a killer, the reference to how he'd been looking for Gold much longer than Emma could imagine, the way he was fascinated with her research project about pirates, the mysterious, broody air, the strange scar around his left wrist, and now the fucking hook _. . ._ he was actually crazy. He had some kind of psychotic delusion about actually _being_ Captain Hook, maybe some kind of persona he'd taken on in his grief at losing Milah. . . Milah Gold, the pawnbroker's wife, the woman who might not even exist, who – Emma was now sure – Killian was convinced that Gold had murdered. She'd watched _Peter Pan_ endlessly as a kid; it had been her favorite Disney movie, her favorite fairytale. She wasn't sure how exactly this worked, but Killian had somehow borrowed that entire mythology to deal with whatever trauma had happened to him. . . Captain Hook, the pirate who wanted revenge on his crocodile. . .

Emma's chest felt tight. She sat back on her heels, half-wishing she hadn't looked at all. If this _was_ true, and Milah Gold had actually existed, and had been in love with Killian. . . and then Gold had killed her and removed all the evidence. . . her parents were right. This was way over her head. Neal and his Russian roommates were nothing against the dangerous waters, the stranger tides, she was now wading into. She should just quit while she should, call the police, and unveil whatever clandestine gears were grinding under the surface here.

She really should. Even if it was uncertain when or if she'd see Killian Jones again, she couldn't let that stop her. At best, he was a masterfully charming con man who had operated by a mercenary's sensibilities for most of his life, fixated on a long-ago murder that might not even have happened. At worst, he was a ruthless killer and schizophrenic manipulator living under a completely assumed identity, no better than the man he was apparently devoted to taking down. But what he'd said to her. . . _"Why didn't I phone the police, or the FBI, or any one of a thousand other commonsensical solutions? I would like you to ask yourself that question, my dear, and then several dozen more."_

Emma shut the drawer with a bang. She felt like she was going to throw up, and didn't want to do it on his things. But as she was getting to her feet, the office door opened.

For a horrifying, heart-stopping moment, she was certain that it was Killian Jones (was that even his name?) himself. But it wasn't. It was that other professor, the one who'd caught the two of them alone together in the classroom on Wednesday. He was looking confused and suspicious, and his expression only grew darker upon viewing Emma. "Miss? May I help you?"

"Uh. . . hi." Emma tried to retrieve her lock pick with her foot. This was not good. This was so not good. "I was just looking for. . ."

"Miss," he said again. "Professor Jones is off campus today. His class is canceled."

"I. . . should have checked my email, huh?"

"That," the other professor agreed, "or let a locked door stop you." He paused, then said, "Miss, if you'll consider taking a bit of advice. . . I, well, I saw both of you the other day. I'm sure you're a promising student, and you have a bright future ahead of you. I would just. . . be careful about your choices."

"That wasn't what it looked like," Emma blurted, mortified. Especially since it very nearly had been. "I'm so sorry, Professor. . .?"

"Isaacs, Jim Isaacs. All right, you seem like a nice girl and I don't want to jump to conclusions. So how about you just leave this here, and I'll let it go this once?"

"Yes, sir," Emma squeaked. "Thank you."

He nodded in acknowledgement, but didn't quite take his eyes off her. She could feel him judging, weighing up, trying to decide if he had made a mistake or not. Then, after the longest, most nerve-shredding moment of her life, he turned and left.

* * *

Emma was so frazzled after that that she barely remembered to make it to Core and turn in the paper soaked with her sweat, blood, and tears. When she got out afterwards, even though it was Monday night, she didn't care. She fished out her phone and called Neal.

He answered on the last ring, sounding wary. "Yeah?"

"Hey, um, it's me." Emma bit her lip. "How about we just forget about the talking thing for now, and go somewhere tonight and get drunk?"

Neal sounded as if he couldn't believe his luck. "Really?"

"Yeah. Really." Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. "You choose. I'm game for anything."

"Sweet! I knew you'd come around! Okay. Pick you up at eight."

Emma killed the call with her thumb, then went to dinner and tried to make at least an effort to eat something; she didn't want to drink on an empty stomach. Then she somehow managed to make it back to the dorm without walking into any fellow students or lampposts, and put the expected effort into doing her hair and makeup. She felt like a caveperson, peeling off layers of primordial grime.

Any hour specified by Neal always meant that he could be trusted to show up at least twenty minutes later, and Emma didn't bother heading out into the chilly night until 8:17. The wind nipped at her legs in their sheer black pantyhose; she'd decided to wear something to show them off. Maybe it was just wanting to run from her worry, but she was feeling a little reckless tonight.

Sure enough, it was 8:24 by the time headlights belted into sight on St. Thomas More Road and rattled to a halt as Neal's car, an early-eighties Plymouth that Emma had taken one look at and promptly dubbed Puff the Tragic Wagon. She dashed across the grass and ducked into the passenger seat, then pulled the belt over her shoulder as he accelerated. "Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise, babe." Neal grinned. "But I think you're gonna like it."

Emma held her tongue as they left campus, heading out into downtown Boston. The Red Sox were in the playoffs, and Game 1 of the ALDS was happening tonight, so there were plenty of people out, congregating in sports bars or restaurants or clubs, and Emma hoped that Neal's surprise didn't have something to do with that. She liked baseball, but didn't want to hover at his side while he tossed down beers and insulted the manager's pitching changes. This being Boston, spectator sports were the chief factor in determining the civic mood, and believing oneself far more capable of performing the job than highly paid professionals was the civic pastime.

It, however, looked as if something different was in the offing. They headed into the hipster section of downtown, with its avant-garde industrial tenements, organic food stores, fair-trade clothing boutiques, and hole-in-the-wall clubs (none of which, God forbid, played mainstream music). One of these, apparently, was their destination. Neal inserted the Plymouth into a parking space that on first view should not have physically been able to contain it, and as they headed inside, Emma caught a glimpse of the headlining act. _Tiger Lily and the Lost Boys._

After everything that had happened earlier, her guess that Killian thought he was Captain Hook, this was just the thing to unnerve her. She stopped short on the sidewalk, having a wave of second thoughts, but Neal already had her by the wrist and was pulling her inside.

A wave of solid noise hit Emma broadside, so she had to lip-read the bouncer when he asked for ID. Her twentieth birthday was in three weeks, so Neal had made her a fake, and it was always a slightly tense moment when it went under the blue light, but someone who sold weed was crackerjack at covering his tracks. The bouncer handed it back and motioned them in.

Strobe lights swept and flashed, and the sheer wet heat of the crowd assaulted Emma from every side. She thought she liked the music – the lead singer was a bombshell, a tall girl with flawless chocolate skin, dark eyes, and straight black hair swept off her neck in a gilted clasp. She was wearing a faux-Indian outfit, apparently in nod to her stage name, and her bandmates were a bunch of grungy adolescents whaling on the drumset, acoustic guitar, and synthesizers; these, then would be the Lost Boys. Probably introduced with some joke about never growing up, since that was what you tried not to do in college. Flying back to Never Never Land.

A queer, giddy lightheadedness took hold of Emma. It was still stifling hot in the club, but she felt cold all over, and didn't protest when Neal handed her a drink. She tossed it down in a few slugs, feeling the alcohol burning her throat, and reached for another. She drank that one as well. Untouchable and untouched, floating through the sea of people like a dreaming butterfly. The lights fell through her as if she was made of crystal. The band spun out their notes like silvered threads, piercing her skin and lifting her up toward the ceiling. Not caring, not thinking, turning into the tide of humanity like a starfish swept out to sea. Heat. Brilliance. Crescendo.

And then, as simply and easily as a candle being blown out: darkness.

* * *

Everything hurt.

Everything hurt like a bitch.

Oh God, had she ever been that drunk?

Slowly, shakily, trying to ignore the sunlight beating with personal malice on her eyelids, Emma fumbled to either side of her, finding sheets and quilts. She was in a bed, she was in someone's bed. She couldn't remember what had happened last night. She knew she'd been drinking a lot, probably more than she should, but someone must have – this wasn't _her_ bed, and her panic started to increase, banging in her skull like an irate dwarf with a pickaxe.

With the greatest effort known to man, she opened her eyes.

The light speared through her like a pneumatic drill, and she whimpered and shut them again. Her throat was as dry as a bone, her tongue thick and cottony, and she doubled up and tried to retch, but there wasn't anything to come up. Her bare legs felt like noodles, and. . .

Fuck. Fuck. What? _Fuck._

Emma groaned, whimpered again, and forced her eyes open long enough to tell that she at least recognized the bed: it was Neal's. Her bra and panties were on the floor, and her clothes as well. Had she. . . had they. . .? Nothing. It was all a terrifying blur.

"Hey babe, you okay?"

His voice from the door startled her so badly that it made her jump almost off the bed, making her head hurt even worse. She moaned and covered her eyes, falling flat on her back, feeling like she had been beaten. "Neal. . ." Her voice was thin, a husk. "What did. . . last night, what did. . ."

He looked confused. "What about last night?"

"Did I do that?" Emma pointed to her things scattered on the floor. "What _happened?"_

Neal raised both hands. "Okay, quit yelling at me, all right? You said yes!"

"I did?" Emma didn't remember saying anything. "What do you mean?"

"I didn't even know this was a problem." Neal was starting to look somewhat panicked. "We bailed around 1 AM and headed back here, and you were wasted and being all flirty, so I asked you if you wanted to and you said yes. What was I gonna do, give you a questionnaire? I was happy you were finally in the mood again, after all the run-around you were leading me on earlier. I thought it was fine, okay?"

"I just. . . me being totally drunk didn't look like a problem to you?"

"Hey!" Neal jerked back. "Those drinks weren't jumping down your throat by themselves. I'm not the bad guy here, Emma. I asked and everything, and you said yes."

Emma opened and shut her mouth, at a loss for words. Worst of all, she couldn't confirm or contradict him; she simply did not remember. This barely felt like the real life, as if she was still in the hyperrealistic dreamscape from last night, floating off like a runaway balloon. She wanted to get up and flee, but she was still naked in his bed, her clothes on his floor where he had put them, and she couldn't think how. She just remained mute, stricken. Now came the part where he told her he'd make it up to her.

He didn't say anything. He stared at her. She stared back at him. And then, since she was hung over as almighty fuck and figured that if he didn't owe her this now, he never would, she went for broke. "Why are you scared of Robert Gold?"

Neal tensed. He wasn't very good at a poker face. "The fuck are you talking about?" he finally croaked.

"Robert. Gold." Emma shoved herself upright, fighting her reeling head, clasping the covers tightly over her chest. "You're scared of him. That's why you live here with your three Russian roommates. So in case he ever turns up, they can fight him off and you can make a break for it. I'm – I'm not stupid, you know. You flipped out when I mentioned his name at Hillside that one day back in September. I just want to know _why – "_

"Shut _up!"_ Neal barked. His face had gone as pale as hers, his fists clenched. "I don't know who told you that, but they better stop talking about things they don't know anything about. I can't believe this, Emma. I thought we were over this, and now you're digging it up to throw in my face? Are you punishing me or what?"

"No!" Emma pulled the quilt off, wrapped it around herself, and half jumped, half fell out of his bed, gathering up her clothes with fumbling fingers and dodging past him to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and locking it. She dressed in a shaking, shivering mess, hearing him yell at her from outside that this wasn't done, he wanted to know who had told her this, he wanted to know what she knew about him. She was sore and scared and angry, angrier than she could ever remember being, at anyone. How dare he. How _dare_ he.

By the time she finally unlocked the door and edged out, he had stopped yelling and was looking contrite. Apologizing for scaring her, apologizing for last night, apologizing for pretty much anything under the sun he could think of, as if he was terrified that she was finally once and for all going to leave him, as if something about him _was_ a lost boy in a very real and present way. She didn't care. She grabbed her purse and keys and coat, shoved past him, and limped down the stairs and out into the morning. Oh God. She had to get back to campus in forty minutes for her math class. She'd have to catch the train. There was a station four blocks away, which was normally no problem but sounded completely impossible in her current state.

Every step hurt. Emma walked hunched, bent over, wanting to just crawl into the gutter and die. Her hair was dirty, her teeth were unbrushed; there was a foul, unfamiliar taste in her mouth.

_Smart lass, hard worker. You must be very proud._

God, if her parents – or Killian – could see her now. They sure wouldn't think that anymore.

God, where was Killian? _Where was he?_

Just then, as Emma was rocking on her toes and trying to work up enough momentum to cross the street, she heard a car behind her, slowing and then stopping. A power window rolled down, and a young woman's voice called, "Excuse me, are you all right?"

Emma turned, slowly and clumsily as a statue coming to life at midnight, and realized to her shock that she recognized the driver. It was the singer from the band last night, Tiger Lily, who out of her costume and makeup didn't look much older than a college student herself. She was wearing a casual track suit and her hair was scooped in a ponytail, but she still had that exotic, arresting beauty. Somebody, somewhere, was going to sign her to a record deal one day.

"Here." The young woman reached over and opened the passenger door. "Do you need a lift? I'll take you wherever you need to go. Get in."

The old axiom about not accepting rides from strangers had been drilled as thoroughly into Emma's head as any kid's, but right now she was dead on her feet, and the young woman didn't look like an axe murderer. Any excuse to curtail her current walk of shame would be gratefully welcomed. "Thanks," she mumbled. "I, uh, can you take me to Boston College?"

"Sure." The young woman put the car in gear. "Do you need me to call anyone for you?"

"No, I'm fine. Really. Thank you." Emma expelled a shaky breath. She had never felt less fine in her life. "I'm Emma, by the way. Emma Nolan."

"It's nice to meet you, Emma." The car rolled forward, up the hill, into the breaking morning. "I'm Tamara."


	6. Chapter 6

Attempting to take a test on differential equations was bad enough at the best of times. Attempting to take a test on differential equations with the hangover from hell was clearly Satan's favorite sitcom. "Ideas in Mathematics" was the soft option, the one designed for liberal arts students who'd woken up one fine morning, realized they needed to take a math class to graduate, and had a panic attack, and until now, Emma had been muddling along at more or less a B average. Staring at the squiggling symbols on the page, however, she might as well have been trying to read ancient Coptic. She scribbled a few aimless answers on the ones she halfway recognized and completely bullshitted the rest. _No more drinking on weeknights. No more drinking period._ At least, not if it involved Neal. Whatever the fuck the motherfucker had thought he was fucking doing last night, he was in for a really big fucking surprise.

Emma handed in her test with the sour, sinking sensation that she'd just completely flunked it, and fled into the breezy midmorning. Tamara – she'd never gotten a last name – had refused her offers of money or any other repayment for giving her a ride back to campus, and Emma wondered if there was any way to track her down, at least send her a text or something. But the other young woman had already vanished, and Boston was a big city. The chances of accidentally running into her again were pretty small.

 _Well, I'm not going to put myself in that position again, anyway._ Emma strode down the path, having some notion of dropping by the Eagles' Nest, the deli in the Commons, and grabbing a sandwich, even though eating was the last thing she felt like doing. But just as she was turning in, she heard the sound of a motorcycle revving down Beacon Street. A man's voice called, "Emma Nolan?"

 _What_ the – ? Adrenaline spiking, she spun around, just in time to see him bringing the bike in to idle at the curb. He was clearly straight from central casting for bad boys: leather jacket, distressed jeans, boots and dark stubble and blue eyes and cleft chin and some kind of wooden box strapped on the back of his ride. Seeing her staring, he said again, "Emma?"

"Oh no. I don't know who the hell you are, but I have nothing to say to you. Get lost, weird stranger." She took several large steps backwards, eyeing up the location of the nearest emergency phone. Had Neal sent him after her to – or had Mr. Gold, or someone –

He shook his head. "That wasn't very polite."

"I'm sorry." Emma reached into her book bag and took a firm grip on the can of mace in the bottom, sensing that it was imminently about to be called for. "Do we know each other?"

"No," he said frankly. "But we were supposed to. My name's August."

"It's nice to meet you, July. And you just suddenly decided that today was a great day to come prancing into my life?" Mary Margaret would despair if she heard her only daughter being such a smart-ass, but Emma was in no mood to suffer fools right now. Especially mysterious men who rode up on Harleys and somehow knew her name. It was too much coincidence to swallow. "Did Neal send you? Or one of his roommates?"

Mr. Month's confusion was plain. "Who's Neal?"

"My boyfriend. Actually, not really my boyfriend anymore, I don't know, but – " Emma flapped her free hand in total disbelief. The hell was she doing, chatting about her love life with this flake who could be from anywhere, to do anything? Her parents had warned her it was a dangerous idea to mess with Gold's business, but she would have remembered if she'd ever seen this guy before in Storybrooke. Unless he wasn't from there, but knew something, and –

"Emma, this is going to sound strange." August killed the bike and dismounted from it, turning to face her. "But it's why I'm here. I'm the only one who remembers."

Emma squinted at him like a suspicious hedgehog. That struck an uncomfortable note in her, especially considering what had happened last night, but she had recently not been doing well for herself by getting mixed up in the business of scruffy, mysterious heartbreakers. "I don't have anything I need to remember." A lie.

"That's a lie."

Fuck.

"All right then, amigo," she said. "That proves it. You're definitely one of Neal's buddies."

"Seriously, I don't even know who this Neal guy is!" His frustration was plain. He pushed off the bike and started toward her, holding out his hands. "Like I said, there's no good way to say this. But I need you to know who you really are and what you need to – "

That, however, was one crazy utterance too far. Emma closed her fingers around the can of mace, whipped it out, and unloaded full in his face, swinging her arm like a lawn sprinkler to ensure maximum exposure. He yelped, toppled backwards against his Harley, and went to his knees, coughing and sputtering, whooping and wheezing and swearing. While he was thusly incapacitated, Emma took the opportunity to make a break for it, and didn't stop until she'd reached her dorm, galloped up the stairs to her room, and crawled under the covers into bed. She pulled them up over her head, and did not get out again until that evening.

* * *

When the alarm went off on Wednesday morning, Emma – despite still feeling like a run-over bag of dog poop – didn't immediately maul it into oblivion. Instead, the realization hit her broadside that if Killian _was_ back, she had his class in an hour. If he was there, it would answer several burning questions, while causing several dozen burning more. If he wasn't. . .

Either way, she had to find out. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, stood up, and hurried down the hall to the suite bathroom; she hadn't had a shower in three days. But no matter how hot she ran the water, or how hard she scrubbed with her bath gel and lavender loofah, she didn't feel clean. There was some sort of grime that went deeper than her skin, no matter how much she insisted to herself that she was fine and she could take care of this and it was just a stupid teenage mistake, the sort of thing you'd laugh with your kids about in twenty years. Not something that made you think you really might be –

Emma's hand froze in midair. Oh God. Kids. Oh God. In the middle of everything else, she'd completely forgotten to ask if they – if _Neal,_ to be accurate – had used protection. They always did, so she couldn't think why this time would be any different, but she'd been drunk out of her mind (drugged?) and he had been none too sober himself. She certainly hadn't taken her pill for several days, and she couldn't remember how late was too late to get Plan B. She'd have to call and ask him, and kill her if that was the one thing she couldn't stand to think of doing right now.

 _It's all right. It's fine, it has to be fine._ She repeated it in her head like a mantra, frantically scrubbing shampoo into her scalp and combing conditioner through her ends. If she just got a little cleaner, if she could just take this skin off, if she could go back, if she could not make this mistake, if she could be smarter and grown-up and wary and on her guard, to build up walls and see through guys' bullshit and know the way the world worked. Anything.

And that, suddenly, was what did it. She slid gently down the wall to sit on the floor of the shower, almost embarrassed by the noise she was making: gulping, wrenching, backbreaking sobs. She hadn't cried like this since. . . since ever. She'd always been emotionally self-controlled and reserved and had never been into throwing fits about things; she just shrugged and moved on. If it hurt, tough titties. It would get better. But this _hurt_ in a way she didn't even have words for, couldn't understand, and all she could do about it was cry. It made her even angrier.

Emma sobbed for a few minutes, letting the tears wash down the drain with the soapy water. Then, still biting her lip, she crawled upright, turned the shower off, and staggered out into the steamy bathroom. She'd noticed that a lot of girls who professed to be completely unconcerned with their looks, or had gone au naturel before, had started styling their hair and wearing full makeup and jewelry to Killian's class. Much as it annoyed her to admit, she was guilty of the same thing. But today she only had time for eyeliner, mascara, a few spackles of foundation, and a sloppy French braid. With that, seriously wondering if she would drive home today if he didn't show up, she groaned and gimped out.

Mist was rising among the trees, giving the golden morning light a translucent quality as if it was shining through a looking glass. Emma belted her black woolen jacket tighter and tucked her scarf in, then headed down to Gasson Hall, heart pounding so loudly that she was sure everyone could hear it. She expected to be shocked as she reached for the classroom doorknob. She'd step in and he would be –

He was there.

Emma sucked in a breath she hadn't even known she needed, feeling her lungs expand painfully as she stared at him. He had his back to her, writing on the chalkboard, wearing a casual sport coat and a pair of jeans that did sinful things to her imagination (and everyone else's, to judge from the half-dozen undergraduate female gazes fixed lustfully on their professor's ass). She'd never noticed before, or else he hadn't worn it, but there was a silver earring dangling from his right ear, a tiny flake of ruby catching the light. Likewise, there were at least three rings on his right hand, chunky vintage things that would have been snapped up instantly at a garage sale. He couldn't have looked more like a rock star masquerading as a professor if he'd tried. _Or a pirate._

Emma remained in the doorway long enough to give herself a stern lecture on the utter necessity of not getting entangled with any more of these disturbing and exquisite male creatures that were popping up in her life right now like Whack-a-Mole. She'd seen the hiding place for that hook. If anyone had killed anyone, it was probably him. But she was already emotionally vulnerable from everything earlier, and so she had no time to guard against the thought that she had never in her life been so relieved to see _anyone._ Whatever had happened. . . but maybe she had been completely mistaken, and he _had_ gone to Ireland. After all, there was no proof to say it was Storybrooke. Just her guess, her paranoia, her _awareness_ of him, breathing the same air.

Shaking her head stupidly, like a concussed rhinoceros, Emma edged inside and took her usual seat. But she couldn't look away from him, and when he finally turned around, sparking an instant rush to pretend they hadn't been staring on the part of the female students, she wasn't quite fast enough. His blue gaze caught hers. He stared at her coolly, and the ghost of a smile curled his lip. Then, as she was starting to overload from the possibility of whatever the hell that meant, he glanced away and calmly called the room to order.

Their research projects were supposed to be turned in on next Monday, but he told them that as they had missed a session, he was extending the deadline to a week from today. This was cause for a lot of relieved sighs, and he proceeded to teach a completely ordinary class. Emma kept her head down again, dutifully scratching notes, reminding herself to actually start typing that project before all her papers disappeared. The last thing she needed was another 4 AM freakout in the computer lab.

When it was over, she stuffed her things into her backpack and once more tried to summon the stomach to call Neal and press for details about Monday night. Failing, she tried not to have visions of the _other_ weirdo rolling up on his motorcycle the instant she set foot outside, hell-bent on revenge for having gotten a faceful of pepper spray. Fuck, this was already shaping up to be the worst week of her life, and she hadn't –

"Miss Nolan?"

Oh God. It had just gotten worse.

"Oh," she stammered, calculating the likelihood of a Tunguska event in the next ten seconds. Slim. "Hi."

He studied her without immediately answering. The impact of that intense blue gaze was no joke; she could barely look him in the eye. Surely he wasn't going to go crazy or turn into a werewolf or anything like that in the middle of Gasson Hall. "Do you have a moment?"

Fuck. No. This guy was worse news than that August character. "Okay."

He smiled. "Come, lass. You'll walk me back to my office?"

Emma was unable to think of a plausible deflection at short notice. "Okay."

They started down the stairs, not quite looking at each other. She could hear the chatter of fellow students, the chiming of the great bells in Gasson's gothic tower high above, her own breathing. It would be extremely awkward to run into Professor Isaacs right now; she hoped he was already safely in the classroom. She tried to think of something witty to say, then reminded herself that the more distance from Killian – _Professor Jones, god damn it! –_ the better. So she just stumped along beside him like a mute, as they reached the ground floor and emerged into the broad plaza of Middle Campus. Fallen leaves were starting to cover the steps in a fractured golden mosaic, and they crunched under Emma's boots, making her feel slightly better. "So, I hope everything was taken care of with your family emergency?"

He shot her a narrow look – then unexpectedly grinned, but with an edge. "Actually, no."

"Oh?" She hadn't succeeded in keeping the biting undertone out of that, and to judge from the way he glanced back at her again, he'd noticed. "Why not?"

"Something we can talk about in a moment, aye?" He waved to someone, but didn't break stride as they headed down to Stokes, inside, up the stairs to his office. She hesitated, hanging back on the threshold, not knowing entirely what it meant to step across it, but knowing if she did, something was going to seriously and permanently change.

"Come, lass," he said, seeing her expression. "I don't bite. . . much."

Emma took a deep breath. They could keep skirting around each other, dodging in a way that was certainly going to fan the suspicions of Professor Isaacs or anyone else who had taken note of the far-from-chaste glances they had been shooting at each other, or she could pull herself together and try to deal with this like an adult. She stepped in.

He shut the door behind her, and turned toward her as if about to accuse her of something, but instead he frowned. Softly he said, "You've been crying."

"H-have I?" She thought she'd done well enough with the makeup to disguise the evidence of her nuclear meltdown in the shower, and she was startled at how easily he'd seen through her mask. "It's. . . not important."

"Come on," he said again, that Irish lilt he put into it making it sound halfway like a croon. "No hurry. You look as if you could use an ear to vent to. And since I'm the one that's dragged you here, it seems the least I can do for you in return."

"Just. . . relationship drama," Emma answered at last. "Nothing I want to bother my professor with."

He gave a small, crooked smile, acknowledging the fact, but a darkness swept over his face like a thundercloud. "That Neal bloke again?"

"Yes."

Killian shook his head and muttered something extremely uncomplimentary under his breath. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the swan necklace on its chain, dangling it in front of her and jerking it back when she made a grab for it. "Ah, Miss Nolan. Gently there. I'd give it back, but you broke our deal."

"Our d – ?" Smart, Emma. Really smart. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Do you?" He smirked, flicking the tip of his tongue along his teeth in a way that made her lightheaded. If he was aware of how many taboos they were transgressing right now – something which she would bet anything he was – he seemed to be taking deliberate pride in doing it. "Broke into my drawer again. That ringing any bells?"

"I. . . figured out a few things, yeah."

"And?" His gaze was more intent than ever. "What was that?"

"You think you're a pirate. Captain Hook, to be exact." Oh God, were you supposed to confront a madman with his delusions, or would that make him violent? Why hadn't she gotten the dean involved or something? "You're hunting a crocodile, but you really mean Mr. Gold."

To her astonishment, this didn't occasion an angry denial or a weak attempt to cover his tracks. Instead he cocked his head and stared at her, just stared at her, until a broad, dazzling smile flowered on his face. "Bloody hell, lass. You _are_ a sharp one."

"What?" That wasn't what he was supposed to say. And somehow she had moved back toward him, instead of away. "I've just told you that I think you're potentially psychotic and have a personality disorder, and you're my professor and this conversation is ten kinds of wrong already, and you aren't going to. . .?"

"Aren't going to do what, love?" His accent was broadening again, as if he was perfectly comfortable – perhaps _too_ comfortable, considering the easy way that endearment had slipped out. "I suppose you would know it, considering you're from there."

"From _where?"_

"Storybrooke." His smile slowly faded to a frown. "I presumed that since you'd sorted it about me, you'd got an inkling as to the rest of it?"

" _What are you talking about?"_

"So it's true." He regarded her curiously from under his long dark lashes. "None of you remember."

 _I'm the only one who remembers,_ August the bad-news-bears Harley-rider had protested. Before she pepper-sprayed him.

"I remember just fine." Emma needed to get out of here, but she was still transfixed, caught in his eyes like a snake charming a bird. "I haven't forgotten anything. Look, this is all. . . very. . . fascinating, but. . . tell me. Did you go to my hometown this past weekend?"

She was caught completely off guard by another of those dazzling smiles, which she really shouldn't have subjected herself to at such close range. "Ah. As I said. Sharp as a blade."

"What? So you _were?"_

"I tried," he corrected. "I thought the necklace would be enough. It wasn't."

"Enough to. . .?"

"To find it. But it wasn't. Drove up to where it should be, right where your da said. But all that I saw was an empty road and a lonely wood. It's still cursed, then."

"What." Emma felt like she was submerged, moving in slow motion, suddenly aware that the known world was on the verge of crumbling out from under her. "Are. You. Talking. About?"

"The curse," he repeated deliberately. "When I said earlier I'd have gone to Storybrooke if I could, didn't you think there had to be a reason for it? It must not have worked precisely the way it was meant to, if you're here, if you grew up normally. But it still keeps outsiders away."

"What _curse?_ What do you think you're _talking_ about?"

They were even closer now, leaning against the end of his desk and facing each other, as she looked up at him and he down at her, an unspoken, wordless sympathy in his gaze. "I know," he said, barely above a whisper. "I've forgotten as well."

Emma opened and shut her mouth like an idiot. He was crazy, he was trying to turn her crazy, he was spouting off crazy things faster than Fox News, and yet, in bald contradiction to everything she had expected, she didn't feel threatened. She didn't feel wrong. The danger that was so thinly veiled under his professional persona had come to the surface more than once in the short time she'd known him – more than once in this freaking _conversation –_ but she'd caught it, deflected it, played it back, with an assurance that seemed to be completely lacking in the rest of her life right now. She didn't feel like an idiot with him. She didn't feel like she should dumb herself down, hold her tongue and be grateful for her loser boyfriend, like she did with Neal. She didn't feel inadequate, like she often did with Wendy no matter how much she loved her. She didn't feel like the little girl who needed her parents to hold her hand. She just felt like. . . _Emma._

Academic ethics, honor codes, and common decency shrieked as they were swept aside. His fingers were ghosting along the back of her neck, and she could almost feel the crackle in the air as he fought not to actually touch her. She realized then that whatever this attraction was, it was decidedly not one-sided. He must have women from every walk of life throwing themselves at him, yet from all that, _she_ was the one he'd taken notice of. He saw a spark in her, a potential, that she was only beginning to discover for herself. A strong woman, not a shy girl, not a –

"Miss Nolan," he mumbled, sounding as if he was drunk. "I think you should go."

Emma thought this was quite true, approaching critical status in fact, and she opened her mouth again to tell him so. Instead, through absolutely no fault of her own, it moved forward and crashed into his.

He inhaled through his nose, a sharp shocked breath, and made a half-hearted attempt to shove her away. But instead it involved fisting his hand in the silky hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her closer with a sudden and shocking strength, her arms tangling around his back and her head turning to come into line with his, teeth scraping, lips warm and wet and open, tasting him like spearmint and smoke and something like sea salt, at home in his mouth, in his arms, breathing him in, the most exquisite and agonizing kiss she'd ever had in her life, the most –

And in that moment, behind her closed eyes, she saw something else.

Smoky, dreamy, faint and faraway, a hall lit by torches. Faceless soldiers in black – a man clutching her to his chest, brilliant flowers of blood on his white shirt – why was he so large, or she so small? Heard the roar and clatter of steel and something else, something _coming,_ huge and dark and terrible, thundering toward them like a breaking wave – the man still had hold of her, he was crawling, he was crying – wherever he was trying to reach, he couldn't – something ahead of her, something like a tree or a wardrobe or both –

That darkness still roaring, tumbling, consuming, devouring, twisting into her flesh, blacking her out, and then she was gone and so was the man and there was nothing but –

Emma's eyes bolted open, and she ripped back from Killian with a gasp. _"What the_ _hell was that?"_ She lurched away from him as if he was radioactive. " _The hell did you just do – ?"_

He didn't answer. He was bent double himself, hands on his knees, struggling for breath. Had he seen it too, or – ? But she was so utterly unnerved by it, by everything, that she wasn't about to stay around for a pleasant game of Twenty Questions. Instead she fairly fled to the office door, ripped it open, and sprinted down the corridor beyond, fleeing from that terrible nightmare or memory, running from what had just happened between them, knowing that it shouldn't have happened at all. That was grounds for suspension at least, for both of them. As an untenured professor in his first semester on the job, it would be easy to sweep him aside, and for her –

Emma was panting as she burst out of Stokes, ran across campus, and hauled ass up the hill to Walsh. The first thing she saw was that there were something like five police cars outside it, making her, despite her current scattered mental state, roll her eyes; probably another fake fire alarm. They'd been going off with such regularity over the past two weeks that someone had started a Facebook group called "BC Students Against The Fire Alarms Going Off All The Fucking Time," which was not the most original name in the world, but conveyed the sentiment admirably. She was probably going to have to stand on the lawn until the fire department got here and cleared them to go back inside.

As she drew closer, however, Emma could see that there was some sort of checkpoint set up at the front doors. At least five uniformed Massachusetts state troopers were accompanied by just as many federal marshals, and one of them had _Boston ATF_ stenciled in white letters across his navy jacket – _Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms._ Oh shit. This was serious stuff. Tell her that someone hadn't been stupid enough to brag to their dumb-butt buddies about –

"Miss." One of the marshals flashed his badge at her. "Special Agent James George. Can I see some identification, please?"

"Uh. . . sure." Suddenly nervous, Emma unslung her backpack, fumbled in her wallet, and extracted her driver's license. "Here."

He looked at it while she shifted from foot to foot, waiting for him to give it back. But he didn't. Instead he passed it to one of his colleagues, who inspected it, glanced up, and nodded grimly.

Agent George pursed his lips, reached for his belt, and removed a pair of handcuffs. "Miss Nolan, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent; anything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to consult with an attorney and to have the attorney present during questioning; if you cannot afford one, one will be provided. If you decide to answer any questions now, you have the right to stop answering at any time. Knowing your rights, are you willing to answer my questions now?"

"I. . ." Emma was so stunned that she couldn't move, speak, squeak out a protest, anything, and she stood completely unresisting as he cuffed her. "I. . . I don't. . . I don't underst. . ."

"You are accused of trafficking with intent to distribute, approximately sixty-two pounds of marijuana, a Class 1 felony under Massachusetts state law. This carries a penalty of a mandatory minimum one-year jail sentence and a $10,000 fine." He reached into his jacket pocket and removed a warrant. "You are the owner of a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, make year 1962, Maine registration 221-STR?"

"Y. . . yes."

"We found everything in there. It's impounded for search. All right. Let's go."

"I – wait," Emma blurted out, panicking and dazed and the verge of tears. "I – I don't, you have the wrong person, I don't, I never have – how did you – "

"There was a tip called in last night. We've had a suspicion for a long time that somebody was running pot through here, but we could never find the ringleader. Not going to reflect well on the school, for sure, especially if the athletics program gets implicated. I'd say you're expelled." If there was even a trace of sympathy in the look he gave her then, it was gone at once. "Come on," he said again, escorting her to the cruiser. "Time to go."


	7. Chapter 7

Everything after that was a blur.

Emma was taken downtown to the Boston division offices, booked, fingerprinted, photographed, and processed, stuck for a small eternity in a sweltering, windowless steel room, and then finally taken, still in handcuffs, to meet with a police investigator and the district attorney, who she disliked on sight. Spencer King was a hard-edged, mid-fifties battle-axe who clearly relished nothing so much as shutting up young delinquents in jail where they damn well belonged, and not even five minutes in, Emma had already worked out that she was in deep, deep shit. She'd waived her right to a public defender, still under the misguided impression that she could explain everything and they'd nod, agree, and let her go, but with King's relentless questions battering her from every side, all she managed to do was incriminate herself. They got her to admit that she'd known about the pot-running operation, that she'd known where it was based, that she'd profited from its existence (they were just shows! Clubs! She hadn't been laundering money or illegally buying handguns!) and she was familiar with its highest-profile clients. This all came before she was given a single chance to mention Neal's name.

During a break, while King and the detective got coffee and left Emma sitting alone at the interrogation table, she tried to come up with a sensible plan of action. They were going to allow her that one phone call, weren't they? Or were they just going to haul her off to the federal pokey and hold her without bond? Sixty-two pounds of pot, found in her Bug – a felony, mandatory minimum jail sentence of a year, $10,000 fine, almost certain expulsion from school, going on her permanent record since she was over 18 – she would pass out if she focused on it too much. How had this even happened? _Why_ would Neal frame her and make a break for it? They'd been fighting, sure, but this went far beyond the pale of anything she had expected. It was downright sociopathic. And he'd apologized to her, albeit after having sex with her while she couldn't remember anything and scaring the hell out of her the next morning. He'd cared for her, hadn't he? What had she done to deserve this, the end of her life as she knew it? _What?_

Emma whimpered and dug her fingernails into her palms, hard enough that she felt the skin break. She could still stop answering and ask for a lawyer, she had the right, but she had the feeling, a thousand times worse than failing a math test, that it wouldn't make a difference. She had nothing left to do but throw her cards on the table, and when the men returned and asked if she was ready to continue, she blurted out, "But it wasn't me! My – my boyfriend, Neal Cassidy, _he_ was the one who did this! I don't know what he did it for, I don't – "

The detective and the DA exchanged patently skeptical glances. "Was this Neal Cassidy a student at Boston College?" King fired at her.

"Yeah, he was, is, a – a senior, I think." Emma faltered under his steely stare. "He knew the guys on the hockey team and he was the one who was selling to them, I just – "

"Miss Nolan." King removed his rimless glasses and folded them on the table. "Normally I charge for this information, but for you, I'm going to offer it pro bono. We could stop this session right now and have a case that would stand up watertight in court, so pulling that trick isn't going to work. If you have anything else you'd like to – "

"Please," Emma interrupted desperately. "Can you at least look into it?"

King shot a displeased look at the investigator, who nodded minutely. The DA pulled out his cell phone, excused himself, and stepped into the neighboring room to make a call, which didn't take long. He had even more of a Cheshire Cat grin when he returned. "I just put in an inquiry with the registrar at Boston College. They have no record of a student named Neal Cassidy ever being enrolled at the school."

"I. . . _what?"_ Emma felt like somebody had just driven a front-end loader through her chest. "What? No! That's not possible! He was my boyfriend, he used my exam notes, I didn't make him up! You can ask around campus, people know him!"

"Not according to the official archive." Spencer King was looking more and more self-satisfied by the moment. "Is there anything else you'd like to say, Miss Nolan, or should we go ahead and conclude this session and transfer you to the county lockup?"

"I. . ." Emma was frantic. " _I didn't do it!_ I want my phone call, I want – " She didn't even know what she wanted, other than for all of this to be a long, drawn-out, lurid bad dream that she was about to wake up from. Had Neal just been hanging around and pretending to be a student for some unfathomable purpose of his own, or had he potentially gotten his Russian roommates and their crack KGB cyber-terrorist skills to hack into the BC database and erase his tracks? "Please," she said, gulping back tears. "My call?"

The men exchanged a dubious glance, but at last, inclined their heads half an inch. A state trooper shuttled her out to the phone bolted to the industrial steel wall. A few weeks ago she had been joking with Alice about how the only time anybody called collect anymore was from jail. She had never imagined she was about to get a chance to prove it herself.

Emma picked up the receiver and hesitated, agonizing. The absolute last thing she wanted to do was call her parents – wasn't that every mom or dad's worst nightmare, getting a call from your kid in jail? At least she hadn't killed anybody, but they were still going to flip a wig. She'd been a stubborn and bratty teenager at times, she could admit it, but at least the worst shit she'd put them through was staying out late past her curfew and getting busted for underage drinking (once!) in the woods. Telling them this, that she was facing jail time and a felony conviction and expulsion unless she could find a way to clear her name. . .

The prospect almost made Emma throw up, and she didn't spook easily. She'd always been up for watching gory horror movies in high school, staring intently at the screen while even some of her guy friends groaned and covered their eyes, and their annual attempts to take her to the Halloween festival and scare her in the haunted house always comically backfired. But that was why, she supposed, she had to do it. Jerking in a few deep, ragged breaths, she gathered up all her courage and punched in her mom's cell phone number.

It rang a few times, as Emma closed her eyes and prayed alternately that Mary Margaret wouldn't pick up and that she would. But it was Wednesday, a school day, and she was probably teaching. Which meant –

The line clicked, and a recorded byte of her mom's voice rolled on. "Hi, you've reached Mary Margaret Nolan. I'm not available right now, but if you leave a message, I'll call you back just as soon as I can. Have a great day, and remember, whistle while you work!" _Beeeeeep._

Emma let out a shaky breath. "H-hi. Mom. It's – me. Hey. Um. Something has kind of happened, and I – I don't have my cell phone. I, um. I. . ." Oh shit. Oh God. How did people do this? "I. . . kind of got. . . arrested. They're holding me at – " She glanced up at the stenciling on the wall, and read off the name. "It's a really big clusterfuck and I don't even know what happened. Yeah. Like I said, they confiscated my cell phone, so don't call me back on that. I just. . . " She sucked air, on the hairy edge of ugly crying into the receiver, and she refused to do it with the state trooper a few feet away. "Yeah," she whispered again, voice shaking. "Okay. That's where I am. I'm okay. I'm sorry for making you worry. Yeah. Bye."

She crashed the phone back onto the hook, aware that that had been the least reassuring voice mail in the history of ever. Oh God, Mary Margaret – what was she going to do? Probably run out of school and peel down to Boston on two wheels. Emma hadn't even thought to ask what they were setting her bail at; she already knew her parents couldn't pay it. And it was only ever important people, celebrities busted for drunk driving, who got out on their own recognizance. Stuff she'd learned last year, how the American bail system was based on ancient English common law, geared to nobility and those who could afford to pay, leaving the actual common man screwed over. Which meant she was staying in jail until whenever they decided to ship her off to whichever circuit judge was hearing her case. And a mandatory sentence meant –

_A year in prison, oh my God –_

"Come along, Miss Nolan." Seeing that she was finished with her call, the trooper took her by the arm. "We're taking you to county to be held overnight. Let's go."

She was out of options. Silently, she followed.

* * *

It was pushing six PM, what with everything, by the time Emma arrived at the county jail, was issued an orange jumpsuit, surrendered her personal effects, and submitted to a humiliating search to make sure she wasn't packing anything of a contraband nature. Since she wasn't convicted of a violent crime, they at least took off the handcuffs, but everything was so strange and alien and confusing that she almost imagined that she was playing a role on a TV serial, some police-procedural cable thriller. It was easier to do that, to detach and go away inside, to pretend it was happening to someone else, to build up walls, rather than to be present and terrified and in imminent danger of losing her mind, madly running through potential scenarios like a demented hamster on a wheel. Was she going to be put in a cell? Had anybody told her suitemates what had happened, or had they seen her being led away? Did it matter if her professors knew or not, seeing as she might never set foot on campus again? And she. . . and she. . .

Emma was just about to be taken away to the women's section, thus to begin her first night as an accused felon, when the officer who'd overseen her booking unexpectedly reappeared. He tersely instructed her to come with him, and refused to tell her why, causing her a moment of total panic that he was going to take the cute blonde college girl off into some convenient dark corner and do God knew what with her. She trailed at his heels back into whatever the hell you called a reception area in a jail, separated from the world by an undoubtedly bulletproof, floor-to-ceiling pane of Plexiglas. But there was someone visible on the other side, having a heated argument with the corrections officer, and Emma squinted at it in confusion, trying to work out what the hell this had to do with her. It wasn't her dad and it wasn't Neal, but it was very definitely a man, and –

Oh.

He swung around, and she felt her breath shrivel up in her throat. The reason she hadn't recognized him was because he was wearing a black leather jacket she had never seen him in before, with a high collar, double cuffs, and a row of tarnished brass buttons, something so flatly _piratical_ that it only confirmed her theory about his delusions. But right now, she was in the process of losing everything and everyone in her life, ruining her entire future, and taking the fall for her deadbeat boyfriend's crime. If against all odds, her unearthly hot history professor who may or may not be a paranoid schizophrenic axe murderer pretending to be a fictional villain, who had kissed her and caused her to have a crazy hallucination, wanted to help her, she couldn't exactly turn him down out of hand.

The jacket wasn't the only alteration to his wardrobe. He was wearing the earring and the rings, jeans and black cowboy boots, and eyeliner, like some emo goth rocker. It looked insanely good on him – she'd never met another guy who could pull off the dark smoky eyes, although she did know a few who tried – and it actually distracted her from her predicament for a few beautiful seconds. All in all, he bore only a passing resemblance to the man she'd first met, the mild-mannered Irish scholar in tweed. This was ridiculous. He was dark, menacing, sexual and charming and charismatic and lethal, and she found herself uncomfortably thinking that she could definitely see him pulling off the pirate act. Strap a cutlass on him and give him a skull and crossbones to raise, and they'd be casting him in the next big-budget movie alongside Johnny Depp before you could say, "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum."

At that moment, however, Emma's total stupefaction was rudely interrupted by reality. Whatever the hell he was doing, she'd have to be very careful with how she handled it. She couldn't afford to go from the frying pan into the fire, especially considering that her panicked parents were tearing down the interstate right now – or were they? Not knowing was the worst. Or –

"Miss Nolan." The officer pointed at Killian. "Can you identify that man?"

Oh crap. Were they arresting him too, as an accessory to something? Had they found out about Mr. Gold? But she was too scared not to answer. "He's my – friend. His name is Killian Jones."

"Would it interest you to learn that he has expressed a desire to pay your bail?"

What? Oh shit, _what?_ Was this some kind of trick, seeing if they could implicate him in the pot-trafficking scheme too? Oh God, she thought he was crazy, but she didn't want him shut away (or did she?) Which would mean that –

The officer was waiting, not so patiently, for an answer.

Emma swallowed. "I didn't know he had that in mind. I don't know how he found out."

The officer gave her a dubious look, but said nothing, until his radio crackled and he lifted it to his mouth, muttering something that she couldn't understand. Then he clicked it off, slung it on his belt, and said, "Well, princess, looks like it's your lucky day. Your. . . friend out there has apparently said he'll put up the money. Doesn't mean you're off the hook – you'll still have to come back for trial and all that – but the suits will take care of that. Once the payment comes through, you sign the affidavit stating that you understand the drill, and you're out."

Emma blinked, blinked again, opened her mouth, and shut it. She sat in total silence until another officer came to get her, led her down the hall where her clothes were returned to her, and barely an hour after she'd changed into the jail jumpsuit, she was stripping it off and getting dressed again and barely listening to the hatchet-faced sourpuss warning her off all the dire things that would happen if she failed to show up in sixty days for the start of legal proceedings, and that getting out of jail didn't mean that the charges had gone away. She nodded again and then again, signed whatever they put in front of her, and then, at last, was escorted out into the hall.

Killian was standing a few feet away, his back to her. But as they entered, he sensed them and spun around on his heel, leather coat flaring behind him. They locked eyes, and she reminded herself to react calmly, like an adult, like a sensible person, like a casual acquaintance. As if casual acquaintances just showed up at jail and got you out, no questions asked.

The next moment she had half lunged, half fallen across the space between them, and into his arms.

His hands closed around her wrists, strong and hard enough to bruise, as he pulled her upright and crushed her against him without saying a word. Her face was buried in his chest, as she smelled aftershave and leather and maleness and heard his heart beating under her ear, as she clung onto him like her anchor in the storm. In the refuge of his embrace, she felt better than she had all day. She never wanted it to end. But then as before, reality returned, and badly, shakily, she let go of him and stepped back, coughing and clearing her throat. "Killian," she croaked. "What are you doing here?"

He released her, but his thumb still brushed over her hand. "Never mind that. Let's get _out_ of here."

Emma didn't protest. Presumably her bail had gone through and she was, for now, once more a free woman. Before anyone could discover a paperwork snafu or ask her another question, she bolted like a dog let out for a walk, out the front doors and through a pair of checkpoints to the parking lot. Killian's car, a sleek black Audi with temporary registration, was sitting at the end, and he opened the passenger door for her and bowed her in, like an old-fashioned gentleman. It wasn't until she had scrambled in and buckled up, until she sank against the leather seat and stopped shaking, until they'd left the corrections complex behind and were heading into downtown Boston, that she finally said a word. Two, in fact. "Th-thank you."

"My pleasure." He smiled grimly. "Quite a spot you were in, aye? How the bloody hell did that happen?"

"I. . . don't even know." Belatedly, it occurred to her that he must have known full well about Neal, considering the threat he'd made to expose him. Had Neal somehow caught wind of that and panicked? Or did it – now she was _really_ reaching, but what had just happened to her demanded _some_ kind of explanation, god dammit – have something to do with the mysterious stranger, August, who'd rolled into town and professed not to know Neal? Had he then decided to make introductions and – and do what? Convince Neal to bust her to accomplish _what?_

This potential explanation made her head hurt. She almost wished Neal _had_ just straightforwardly stabbed her in the back, rather than this melodramatic B-movie bullshit. But considering that if she ever saw him again, the first thing she'd do would be to kick him where it hurt, she didn't anticipate receiving an explanation.

Emma leaned back against the headrest, wondering whether she dared to believe that she was safe, that this was over. Even if she still had the specter of a felony conviction hanging over her head, there had to be something she could do about it. She wouldn't make the mistake of refusing a lawyer again, and there had to be people who would testify on her behalf – Wendy and Alice for a start, who certainly knew that the pot thing had been Neal's lookout and not hers. She still had no clue why Killian had paid her bail, but maybe – whatever he'd seen when they kissed, something had been strong enough to –

It was dark, so she didn't see the road sign to be sure, but something about it caught her attention enough to make her whip her head back and frown. It abruptly dented her giddy optimism, reminded her that Killian's transformation from professor to pirate (fake pirate, but whatever) wasn't necessarily a good thing. That there was something very specific he'd been after, and that his assistance was going to come with the kind of price she might wish after all that she hadn't –

They passed another road sign as Killian executed a flawless no-look merge, and this time, she was sure of it. She snapped up in her seat and stared at it.

_I-95 N._

Oh.

_Shit._

All this time, she had naïvely assumed that he was taking her back to campus, that they might even join forces and smoke out Neal from whatever foxhole the bastard had burrowed down. But there was no route in existence back to BC that involved taking northbound I-95, and as they gained speed on the entrance ramp and downtown Boston blurred into a haze of lights on the nighttime horizon, she finally and sickeningly understood.

She turned on him in horror. "You," she stammered. It was just fear at first, and then it was anger. _"You son of a bitch, you're taking me to Storybrooke!"_

He grinned at her, that same way he had back in his office, not the close-mouthed professional smile but the full-on leer, white teeth brilliant in the darkness of the car, the smile that sang to her and horrified her in turn, when the mask of gentility had cracked entirely and all she saw underneath was the madness. He hit the accelerator. "Smart lass."


	8. Chapter 8

"Stop!" Emma yelled, making a lunge at the wheel as if she thought she was going to grab it and steer them off onto the shoulder, or at least cause him enough alarm to be distracted, or however the hell she thought she was going to deter him short of actually crashing the car. She frantically fumbled in her purse for her cell phone, which had been returned to her as she left jail – then, as her finger hovered over the power button, it froze. Who was she going to call? The police? To tell them that not even hours after being bailed out but still awaiting trial on a felony drug charge, she was now fleeing across state lines with a potential murderer? Yeah. That would be a brilliant fucking idea.

Her moment of hesitation cost her. Killian pushed her smartly away with his free hand, and her seatbelt locked as she jerked back. He changed lanes, so any attempt to strand them would almost certainly result in an accident, and kept on driving as if nothing had happened. "Calm down, lass."

"Calm _down?_ You think we can just vanish forever and expect nobody to – "

"Who said anything about forever?" He flashed a grin. "I have my literature class to teach on Friday morning, and I fully anticipate being back in time for it. This shouldn't take long at all."

"You – " It had already been a bitch of a day, to say the least, and Emma was in no mood to tolerate his enigmatic bullshit. "You're technically kidnapping me right now, and don't think I won't tell someone about it if I have to. _Why are we going to Storybrooke?"_

For a fraught moment, Killian didn't answer, but she could see taut anger etched into every line and sinew of his face. His mocking, smiling manner had vanished, and his knuckles went white on the wheel, making the livid scar on his left wrist stand out starkly against his pale skin. Finally he said, "All right, lass. Here's the bloody long and short of it. Milah – Gold's wife – and I were in love, a long time ago. She left him for me, him and their young son, and he's not the sort of man to forget that easily. The son ran away from home, and he certainly didn't forget that either. After gods know how long hunting for us, he finally found us. Whereupon he murdered his own wife, the mother of his child, in cold blood in front of my eyes. She died in my arms, with her last breath she told me that she loved me, and then she was gone. Ever since, I have been searching for Gold. He will pay for it with his life's blood, if it's the last thing I do."

Emma was utterly taken aback at the fury in his voice, the violence and the nearness of the loss, and she involuntarily put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry."

"Why?" He glanced over at her with a bleak, grim smile. "Not your fault."

"I. . ." She had never suspected that this was lurking beneath his apparently cosmopolitan exterior, but something about it wasn't matching up. Killian had clearly been otherwise occupied long enough to get a doctorate and a professorship, and for all of Emma's almost twenty years of life, she had never known Gold to leave Storybrooke for even a day. It was entirely possible that he'd done it in the numerous periods where nobody knew what he was up to, of course, but she didn't think so. And Killian was, at most, fifteen years older than her. Two decades ago, he'd have been barely a teenager, certainly nothing to entice a grown woman unless she was some kind of Mrs. Robinson. . . but then they'd been together long enough for Gold to come after them, and where in this Killian had decided to go to school instead of striking back didn't fit into the timeline at _all. . ._ as well as his cryptic implications that he would have gone to Storybrooke before if he could. . .

"I'm sorry," she said at last, having sifted through the available evidence and come to the only possible conclusion. "That's a load of crap."

He smiled at her again, but with much less friendliness. "You think so?"

"Yes, I do. Gold hasn't left Storybrooke in at least twenty years. It's not possible. I'm not going to deny that something might have happened with his wife, but. . . Killian, I looked into it. Milah Gold, at least under that name, doesn't exist. Whatever you think you're doing, it's not – "

She was cut off as he let out a barking laugh. "Oh, and look at you knowing all about me, lass. Let me tell you right bloody now, you don't. You don't know a thing. You've been in my life not quite a month, and suddenly you're fit to understand? You don't even – "

" _Stop it!"_ He was scaring her. "I told you, I know you think you're Captain Hook, and until we get that sorted out, I can't – "

"Why do you think I'm not?"

"Because – because – " She floundered. How in the hell were you supposed to answer that? "Look, Killian," she said, almost pleading. "I get that you're upset and something traumatic happened to you and you're just dealing with it somehow, but I don't think – "

He raised a hand. The glow of the highway lights limned his face, dwelling deep in his eyes and making him look suddenly a hundred years old. "I'm not interested in hearing it," he said wearily. "I'm not going to hurt you, and you're in no danger with me. But just now – "

"You just said you're going to drive to my hometown and kill the man who pretty much runs it. While I've already been framed for a drug bust, for that matter. You think nobody's going to _notice?_ That you'll just roll into Storybrooke and do your vigilante thing and roll out again and go back to your life at Boston? You teach that class on Friday, and the marshals will be coming in to arrest _you_ this time. Take you out in handcuffs. Great publicity for the school, especially in the wake of my scandal."

Ridiculously, that only made him smile. "I don't think so."

"Why the hell not?"

"First, someone would need to know that Storybrooke exists, and second, that Gold is dead."

"Try the entire damn town."

"Oh, because you all love the man and would be terribly grieved to see him bite the dust, instead of being secretly relieved that he can't call in those favors he has lined up against you? Yes, everyone would be weeping their eyes out. You're all scared of him, and don't waste your breath telling me otherwise. You've been waiting for someone brave enough to take him down."

"For someone who's never been to Storybrooke, you sure seem to know an awful lot about it."

"And why is that? Do you think?"

"As far as I can tell, it's part of this fantasy explanation you've come up with. That there's something strange about us, that no one can find us, that we're not even. . . real." Emma faltered over the last word. There were admittedly a lot of things Killian brought up that she couldn't explain away, his relentless questions flying at her like shrapnel in the wake of her world already being blown up by Neal (had it been Neal?) But how could she not be real? She'd grown up in a regular middle-class American home with her parents, gone to school, fretted about zits and if any boy would ever like her and math homework. She had embarrassing pictures from birthdays and Christmases and summer vacations. She had dreams for her future, or at least she had. How could she not be real?

"Closer." He smiled again, with just as little humor. "I'm trying to decide whether to tell you."

"Tell me _what?"_ Emma almost screamed. She was sick to death of him and his coy hints, and what had happened when she'd kissed him and seen. . . whatever she'd seen. Somewhere in the back of her head, she knew that there wasn't and couldn't be a rational explanation for that, and it scared her almost more than the first-hand tour of the criminal justice system she'd taken today. "First you kidnap me and now you want to make me an accessory to a murder that's going to turn Storybrooke upside down, and _then_ you're doing this to me too?" She was in tears by now. "I would rather have stayed in jail!"

He flinched as if she'd hit him. He reached out awkwardly as if trying to wipe her eyes, but she recoiled, and he jerked back as well. Then he changed lanes, took the next highway exit, and pulled into a dingy little 24-hour gas station and mini-mart, the buzzing "Open" sign in the window smearing neon light against the darkness. He nosed up alongside the pump and turned the car off, then reached into his wallet and handed her ten dollars. "You're probably starved. Go in and buy yourself some food."

Emma stared at him suspiciously. "What?"

"Food," he repeated. "Dinner. Not enough? Here." He thumbed out another tenner.

"What makes you think I won't go in and tell the guy behind the counter that you're kidnapping me and planning to commit murder, and that he should call the cops?"

"What makes _you_ think I won't have dialed both 9 and 1 on my cell phone, and only need to add another 1 to tell the operator that you're not only a felon, but a felon on the run?" He grinned. "Eh, love?"

"Jesus Christ, you play dirty," Emma seethed, ripping the passenger door open and stepping out into the cold, windy night. They had been driving for at least forty-five minutes, enough to have left Boston well behind; there was no way she was going to find a T station out here, or hope that a bus was still running. That Irish accent wasn't nearly as charming when it was being used to openly blackmail her, and any remaining delusions about him swooping in like a white knight to save her – something which she had admittedly thought when she first saw him – were long, long gone. He was a dangerous man with apparently nothing to lose, and unless she thought of something fast, she was stuck playing his game.

She pushed open the door and headed inside. Gas stations late at night were uniformly the most depressing places in the universe, and this one was no different. A cooler of off-brand beer, a display of plastic tourist kitsch that even China would have been embarrassed to take credit for, incomprehensible music mumbling on the radio, and a pudgy loser in glasses manning the fort, surreptitiously perusing a comic book behind the counter. He glanced up at her entrance, seemed to judge that she wasn't a likely candidate to shoot up crack, demand cigarettes, or force him to empty the register, and went back to reading.

Emma browsed among the shelves, trying to work up an appetite for jerky, potato chips, candy bars, or Hostess cakes, but couldn't. In fact, though she'd barely had anything to eat all day, the very idea turned her stomach. Besides, she was determined not to allow Killian to buy her off with a miserly twenty bucks; she'd throw it back in his face when she returned ( _was_ she going to return?) She could call his bluff now, before he came in to pay for the gas, and get the police to take _him_ away in cuffs. And then. . .who the hell knew. Sneak out the back while they weren't looking, or something. Hitchhike home. She hadn't exactly thought this through.

The door banged, and Emma jumped, looking up guiltily. Shit, that had taken less time than she thought. _Now_ what was she going to do, just –

Upon second glance, however, she realized that it wasn't Killian, but a gang of pasty-ass dudebros rocking straight-billed Red Sox caps, baggy hoodies, sagging pants, and the whole douchebag chic. They were loud and obnoxious and clearly looking for someone to torment; they grabbed the comic book out of the cashier's hands and began tossing it from dudebro to dudebro, while he pleaded that it was a first edition and could they please stop before he had to call his manager. As if he didn't have enough misery to start with, working the graveyard shift in this place. Really, taking the man's comic book was just beyond mean.

Emma put back the candy bar she'd had in her hand, and took a step toward the door. But that action brought her squarely into their line of sight, and someone wolf-whistled loudly at her. "Hey, babe! Why don't you come over and say hello?"

Emma tensed. Like every other attractive college girl, she'd dealt with her share of unwanted male attention: the creeper who spied on her at the library, the perv who flashed her at the train station on her way home from the Maroon 5 concert with Wendy and Alice, and the general frat-boy attitude that they were entitled to comment on any aspect of her body any time they wanted. Neal had never been a damn bit of use at fending them off; he'd puff up and make a few threatening noises, but if there was actually the chance of a confrontation, he'd shrink. Thus, Emma had learned to shut them down on her own, but she really wasn't in the mood for it right now. She kept walking.

"Blondie!" Oh crap. Douchebag dead ahead. "Yeah, I'm talking to you!"

"Leave her alone," the cashier squeaked, thus making himself braver in one moment of not knowing her than Neal had been during their entire relationship. "I'm really calling the manager right now."

The guys paid him no attention. Grinning like a bunch of crocodiles, they closed in on her, one of them darting over to block the door and two more circling around behind. God dammit, she'd already used her pepper spray on that August jerk, and while she could probably nail the first one in the balls if necessary, that trick wouldn't work twice. She had a few tae kwon do moves from the self-defense class she'd taken in high school, but she wasn't about to be mistaken for Jackie Chan any time soon. Crap. Seriously, crap. Chowderheads were the worst. A bunch of bored middle-class white kids who thought they were street toughs.

"Where you goin', sweetie?" A moist hand closed around her wrist, spinning her around to examine a close-range leer. "Hey, we're nice, we promise. We just wanna get to know you."

"Yeah." His buddies cackled. "Yeah, that's it. Why don't you?"

Emma slapped at him. "Why don't you eat shit and die?"

"Ooooh." They exchanged bigger grins. "Or maybe you should just – "

At that moment, the door blew open again, bringing with it a sudden blast of chilly night. Emma had her back to it, having been thus positioned by her unwelcome suitors, but she did hear the sudden hush that fell over them. Then one of the douchebags said, "Oh, Christ. Another fuckin' nerd."

"Come again, mate?" She'd recognize that voice anywhere, that Irish accent low and lethal enough to cut a diamond. "You think this is a bloody joke?"

 _Oh God._ Emma twisted around and beheld, of course, none other than Killian Jones in the flesh, still in black leather and earring and boots. But he had added something else to the ensemble. Held casually in his right hand, glittering and long and dangerous, was something that looked awfully like – no, definitely _was –_ a sword. An actual cutlass, and no movie prop or hobbyist's collector item. It looked fully capable of running, say, a chowderhead through the beer belly.

"Dude. Easy with the sword." One of the dudebros, smarter than the rest, had apparently come to the same conclusion. "We were just. . . were just. . ."

"I don't bloody care what you were just. I'm insulted at having to breathe the same air as you, and if you have the foggiest notion what's good for you, you'll unhand the lass and never be seen again." Killian slashed the air with a whistle, flipping the blade as dexterously as if he was about to throw it and causing a communal panic among the douchebag brigade. "I can promise you that you'll have an excellent opportunity to examine it when it's three feet out your arse."

A few still seemed inclined to protest, but when Killian stalked nearer, looking (Emma had to admit) for all the world like a vengeful pirate, they decided it wasn't worth the effort. With mumbled apologies, they let go of Emma and fled into the night, and he stood watching them with a balefully black stare that would have caused Medusa to file for copyright infringement.

"Uh, hey. . . m-man?" the cashier stammered at last.

Killian, snapped out of a trance, glanced up shortly. "Aye?"

The cashier tore off some receipt paper and a pen, and held it out. "Can I have your autograph?"

* * *

After _that_ little episode – had he _seriously_ just busted in there with a motherfucking _sword_ to defend her honor while he was in the process of blackmailing the _shit_ out of her? – it was almost 10 pm by the time they finally hit the road again. She had seriously considered making a break for it, but somehow the sight of that thing had dampened her eagerness to cross him as well, and it would be better to wait until they were closer to Storybrooke, when she had a chance of actually finding an ally. Furthermore, she was emotionally and physically exhausted, had no wherewithal either to come up with an escape plan or to pull it off, and was soon drowsing in the passenger seat as they continued to speed north, telling herself that she really shouldn't.

"Killian," she mumbled. Here in the car, with the smooth rumble of the engine below, the flashes of passing cars lighting up like stars, she felt almost like she was in a dreamworld, that place between sleeping and waking. "Why did you even come here?"

His voice sounded just as far away. "Come where?"

"Here." Emma waved a hand. "Actually, not here, but you know. Boston College, of all places."

He took his time answering that one. "Favor," he said at last. "Old friend, very old friend, pulled some strings."

"What friend?"

"Lives in London. Doubt you know her."

"Try me."

"Don't think I will. Proprietary." He shrugged. "All you need to know is that her granddaughter goes to the school and she's given extremely substantial sums to it, thus placing her in a certain position to recommend me to the dean of the faculty. She funded my education at Trinity as well, kept a roof over my head when I was all but bloody penniless. I owe her a great deal more than I can ever repay, in fact."

"Yeah, that. You said. . . Milah.. was murdered by Gold, but somehow you've had the time to chill out from your quest for vengeance and do a doctorate? Those things take like five years."

"Because when I first came here, I found out that so far as the real world was concerned, Storybrooke, Maine did not exist and I had no chance of finding it. I couldn't go back, and I had to find some way to support myself, hope to make a new life." He shrugged again. "Discovered to my own shock that I was good at reading books, critiquing arguments, writing papers. I'd never been the sort before. Did my arguing with a sword, not a pen."

"I kind of got that impression, but. . . what do you mean? The real world? Go back where?"

"All those questions you keep asking, lass, but won't hear the answer to."

"And that is?"

He turned to her, sea-blue eyes utterly, deadly serious. "You think I'm lying. I'm not. I _am_ Captain Hook."

Emma instinctively opened her mouth to tell him once more that he was full of it, but she hadn't gotten anywhere pulling that card before, and if she played along, maybe it would coax him to reveal more of this demented, intricate backstory he'd ginned up for himself. "Okay."

His look turned narrow. "What?"

"What what?"

"That was a bit too convenient of an agreement."

"Jesus, I've spent the entire time thus far telling you that you're nuts, and now you want me to keep on doing it?"

He shrugged. "Point taken. Very well, then. There's part of the answer. The rest of it is, I can't find Storybrooke because it's enchanted. Cursed, in fact. Completely shut off from the outside world, though I can't figure out how you and your parents were able to leave, and you were able to have, so far as I gather, a relatively normal life. It clearly didn't work quite as it was supposed to, and I've spent a great deal of time doing research – the other reason the academic's life appealed to me, by the way. You can look up all sorts of things, and say it's for a book."

" _Cursed?"_ Emma repeated stupidly. "Don't you think that's a little. . . extreme?"

"Your decision whether you want to believe me or not, love."

"Yeah, I'm taking a rain check on that."

"And yet a moment ago you seemed willing to accept that I was Hook."

"Did I say that?"

"Open book." He glanced at her again, which although there weren't many other cars on the road, still seemed like a dangerous habit. "I know you were lying about it. Of course you don't believe me, and what bloody reason would you have to? You've grown up in a sensible place where sensible people do sensible things, and certainly you know not to believe in fairytales. But when we had that. . . meeting back at my office, you saw something, and it rattled you. I know, because I saw something as well. Now you're beginning to question, because there isn't another explanation, and after the day you've had, you don't feel up to facing just what it could mean."

Emma was rattled anew at this spookily accurate précis of her situation, just as she had been when he perfectly described Mr. Gold. It _was_ true that he knew things he had no way of knowing, but to ask her to swallow the pirate thing was pushing it. Instead of challenging him, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest, meaning to just steal a nap, forty winks, that was it. Enough to forget about this crazy for five fucking seconds, enough to. . .

_falling nothing but falling darkness everywhere screaming roaring like being caught in the biggest damn break of a wave, like that summer on Martha's Vineyard when she'd almost drowned and her dad had swum out to save her. . . her dad was somewhere in here but she couldn't see him anywhere and they were still falling and there was no end to the abyss, torn away and splitting back and vanishing, a castle crumbling off a cliff and a massive green-black cloud engulfing a forest, lightning sparking and spitting and howling, vanishing, everything vanishing, dead and destroying and over, clutching her to the heart of darkness as she was falling and falling and nothing but falling and it wasn't ever going to –_

Emma's eyes jerked open with a gasp, the sensation of a never-ending plunge still so strong that she instinctively grabbed for the car seat under her. It was there, thankfully, but it took her a further moment to realize that the car itself was stopped. Skeletal dark forest fringed the undersides of the sullen dawn sky, casting an eerie winter-rose light across the dashboard. They were parked on the shoulder of the two-lane highway that led into Storybrooke, a realization that sent a bucket of ice water down her spine, and the driver's seat was empty.

"Killian?" She panicked, reached for the door, and stumbled out into the silent sunrise. "Killian!" Oh God, had he really been cold-blooded enough to park here, leave her behind, and walk the rest of the way into Storybrooke? A man in black leather with a sword. . . Graham had probably gotten to him already and clapped his vengeful ass into a jail cell. For the best, but. . . " _Killian!"_

She heard a faint answer, and scrambled to the edge of the road, sliding on her butt down the bank and into the forest below. A moment later, his lean, dark form appeared among the trees, striding toward her with an expression of some alarm. "What, lass?"

Emma breathed out a ragged sigh of relief, despite herself. "What the hell are you doing? Trying to get into Storybrooke that way, or – "

"Not precisely." He took her arm, as protectively as if he was escorting her through a bad part of town late at night (which he had, after all, more or less already done) and began to climb with her back up toward the car. "Thought I saw somebody wandering in the woods."

"Who?" Emma asked nervously.

"Couldn't say. Thought it was a woman, though. Wearing white, some sort of gown or sack or gods know what. Gave me something of a turn."

"Oh?" Emma tried not to think of every spooky story she had ever been told at a middle-school cookout, about weeping women and young female hitchhikers who vanished when you picked them up and all that other stuff. "Probably just. . . a will o' the wisp or something."

"Probably," Killian agreed. They'd reached the car, and he held the door open for her. "Well?"

Emma didn't move. "If I don't get back in, are you going to be able to cross the town line?"

"Likely not, seeing as what happened last time."

"What are you going to do to me if I refuse?"

She'd expected, _feared_ that to trigger another transformation from charming scholar to ruthless pirate, but instead he smiled crookedly and stepped closer. Their noses were brushing, his hand on her back, as he whispered seductively, "Come now, lass. I'm sure we can arrive at some sort of agreement. You enable me to do what needs done, and I'll have a word with my wealthy benefactress about smoothing everything over with the school. Just now, they won't want you back, not if you've cast their flagship athletics program into disrepute. But you don't want to throw away your future, your chance to graduate and have a career, over something that's not your fault. That's right. Think about it. I can speak to her, and she can make this all go away."

Emma bit her lip. _He has me._ She had no idea who this rich old lady was, someone who had a granddaughter at BC and apparently enough clout (and bank account) to sway the board of trustees, but it was a hell of a lot better than expulsion and panhandling at street corners and whatever else her life would entail as a flunked student and felon. _But what if Killian is making her up?_ He'd certainly proven adept at lying on his feet, changing hats and stories as he pleased. She didn't want to bite for the worm, only to get stuck on the hook. _Possibly literally._

Nonetheless, she didn't have any other ideas coming to mind. BC _was_ insanely protective of its hockey team, its pride and joy, and finding out that she was purportedly responsible for selling weed to a bunch of the players wasn't going to be cause for a party in the department. She could fight to clear her name through the legal system, but that would take time. Months at least, and she'd be suspended for the duration, falling behind on her education and with no guarantee of getting her spot back and. . .

It couldn't possibly be this easy. Could it?

She was not yet twenty years old, and a day ago, she'd thought (with good reason) that her life was over. Now it could be just a bad dream. It could go away. She could wake up.

Without a word, she stepped back from him and got into the car.

* * *

The sun was coming up over Main Street by the time they were driving down it. It couldn't have looked more like quintessential Americana, Granny putting the sign outside her diner for the breakfast special and the yellow school bus heading by. It gave Emma a strange sense of déjà-vu to see her hometown like this, just like she always had, appearing in the middle of them like a ghost in a strange black car with a strange man in black at her side. She could see people already turning to stare; Marco, on the ladder outside the general store, gave her a moment of panic as she was certain that the kindly old woodworker had recognized her through the car window. But he didn't immediately reach for a phone, and they rolled by without incident. She'd never told Killian where to find Gold's house, but he didn't seem to need the help.

 _This was a bad idea._ She already felt slimy and uncomfortably guilty, and by the time they finally pulled up onto the quiet, tree-lined street housing Gold's mansion, she felt like she was going to be sick. As Killian expertly parallel-parked on the first try and jerked up the hand brake, she had to try one last tack. She grabbed his arm and cupped her other hand around his cheek, then pulled him over the gearshift toward her.

It was a clumsy schoolgirl kiss, more of a peck that almost missed his mouth, the first time it had ever occurred to her to try to use her feminine wiles to get her way (she had, in her opinion, never had any to speak of). "Please," she breathed. "Don't. You have a life back there too. You don't need to do this. How about we both just – "

Killian disentangled himself, gently but firmly. "A deal's a deal, lass," he reminded her. "And as a matter of fact, I _do_ have to do this. Ever since I found out he was still alive, that there was even the barest chance that I could get to him, I haven't been able to sleep at night."

He smiled at her, almost sadly. Then he reached over, popped open the glove compartment, and removed the only thing that could have been in that drawer in his office. A gleaming, silver, lethally sharp hook.

"This won't take long," he promised. "Stay here." And got out.

Emma sat stone still for about thirty seconds, left in the getaway car, fresh off the most surreal twenty-four hours of her life. In those thirty seconds, however, she did some extremely fast thinking.

Now, by agreeing to this, she _had_ made herself a criminal, regardless of what panned out from the drug charges. Her entire life, her parents had tried to drill into her head that there was a fundamental difference between doing what was right and doing what was easy, and that a person was shaped by the choices they made in those moments. By agreeing to let Killian go murder Gold, no matter what Gold had supposedly done in the past, in exchange for him tidily pulling strings to get her enrolled back at BC, she had chosen the latter. It _wasn't_ right, and no amount of concern for her own ass, her own future, would make it so. She had completely blown it, and all she could do now was hope it wasn't too late.

Emma spun around, fumbled in the back seat under the spare jacket, and felt her hand close around it: the hilt of the sword Killian had used to threaten her unwanted admirers in the gas station. It was heavy, heavier than she'd expected, real and sharp steel, designed for the express purpose of taking someone else's life. She didn't mean to use it in that capacity, but she wasn't going in unarmed. Clutching it, she got out of the car and started at a dead run up the porch steps.

The door of the mansion hung open, where Killian had invited himself in. _Breaking and entering._ Depending on how good of an alarm system Gold had, they could have five minutes or fewer before Graham got here, and if Mayor Mills got wind of this, _everything_ was shot to hell. Emma's pulse was screaming in her throat as she banged through Gold's foyer, expecting every moment to see blood spreading on the ornate oriental rugs – though whether his or Killian's was an open question at this point. But she caught sight of a black leather jacket, and veered in that direction instead.

Killian was standing in the living room, hook in his hand, looking as if he wasn't quite sure what to do next. Hearing her, he whipped around, clearly ready to dismember her, then recognized her and stared. "Bloody hell, lass. What are you doing with my sword?"

"Stopping you," Emma panted. "I'm sorry. The deal's off."

"Is it?" He arched an eyebrow. "For your information, it actually is, but not for the reasons you think. If the crocodile was here, I'd know by now. But he's not. He's gone."

"He's. . . gone. . .?" Emma was flabbergasted. She'd said it herself on the drive up here, desperately trying to talk Killian out of it. Gold hadn't left Storybrooke, ever, in at least twenty years, living here as a hermit and doing whatever he did at his pawn shop and accumulating his miser's hoard of favors which people owed him, which he then called in and paid out as expertly as any unscrupulous and fabulously wealthy banker. For him to be _gone_ now, there was nothing that could have happened, nobody who would be desperate enough to. . .

No.

Wait.

Oh God.

She had called Mary Margaret from jail yesterday – was it only yesterday? Talk about time getting away from her. And, of course, her mother hadn't picked up, so Emma had just left a message. She'd known it would make her parents panic, probably even drop everything and come down to Boston, but it had never occurred to her that they wouldn't stop there.

That was it. Gold liked to moonlight as a lawyer from time to time, and so David and Mary Margaret must have gone to him. Made a deal with him. Agreed to whatever he'd asked for, as long as he'd accompany them to Boston and get their daughter – get _Emma –_ out of whatever she was accused of. Stopped at nothing to clear her name.

Hence, Emma and Killian were now here in Storybrooke, having just broken into Gold's house, and her parents and Gold were in Boston. Waiting for them. Looking for them. And about to discover that they were missing. That she was missing. In company of the very man who was planning to murder the man who could be crucial to getting her out of charges.

Oh. _Shit_.

And then, just since this had to get worse, Emma heard the sound of footsteps on the porch. And a very familiar voice calling, _"Sheriff."_


	9. Chapter 9

Ludicrously, Emma's first thought was to run for it.

She could still do it. Leave the sword and bust out the back door, sprint across the yard, shinny up the fence and run away into Storybrooke. This was her home turf, she could definitely find somewhere to hide out until the heat blew over (and then. . . do what?) She was sick of being busted by association and being framed for shady guys' crimes, and God knew Killian had been stupid enough to deserve whatever was about to be unloaded on his leather-wearing, hook-slinging, bald-facedly-lying ass. But somehow, in the half a minute she had to do so, she didn't. It had been thirty seconds that convinced her to come after him, and thirty seconds that convinced her to stay. Whether it was right, easy, or none of the above, she had no idea.

Still, she didn't intend to be caught red-handed. She dropped the sword and kicked it under Gold's elegantly upholstered davenport, then turned to Killian and hissed at him, as heavy footfalls crossed the hallway and turned toward the parlor. Tell her he wasn't going to –

"Sheriff!" the voice called again. It was followed moments later by the sight of Graham Humbert, Storybrooke law enforcement in the flesh, in the doorway.

Emma swallowed hard. She'd had a ridiculous crush on him as a teenager, of course, which had only been curtailed by virtue of her leaving town to go to college and not seeing him on a daily basis, but one glance made all those old feelings rush up, the kind she'd spent many a late night angstily venting to her journal while listening to Evanescence. He looked the same as ever, with the mop of sandy curls and blue-grey eyes and perma-scruff, a talent he apparently shared with Killian. He was sporting his usual digs of jeans, jacket, and badge, although the latter was in his left hand so he could flash it in their faces, and his right hand was aiming a cocked and loaded gun. On sight of her, however, he holstered it like it was hot and put a heroically valiant effort into answering the question as to whether he could ever look stupid with shock. _"Emma?"_

"Um." She gulped. "Hi."

"Who are you now, mate?" Killian had apparently already taken notice of the way she had reacted to him, and he divided a narrow, suspicious glance between the pair of them. "Was expecting someone a bit less. . ."

Graham raised an eyebrow.

"Of a ponce," Killian finished, deliberately. "Can I bloody help you?"

"Matter of fact, _mate,_ you can." Graham, recovering from his discomposure with a professional's alacrity, removed the handcuffs from his belt and advanced menacingly on the pirate, apparently put off by the ponce comment. "You're breaking and entering, and I don't think I've ever seen you in town before, so there are quite a few questions I'll be needing to ask you."

"Actually," Emma blurted out, before she could think better of it. "He's a. . . a friend of mine. This is just. . . it's just. . ." Oh fuck, what _was_ it? "A really. . . bad game of Truth or Dare," she settled on at last, hideously embarrassed. "You know. . . college parties sometimes get carried away, and there, um, might have been some of the good cheer involved, and you know, he's Irish. . ." As if that explained everything. "I was actually here to. . . put an end to it, before anyone got hurt." She leveled a narrow glare at Killian, who gazed back without apparent perturbation or reaction. "Wasn't I?"

Graham's expression remained patently dubious. "When your mum asked me to patrol for intruders out here, I can't say I expected it to be you."

"Uh. No. Probably not." Irony, like karma, was a bitch. "But I promise, I can explain and – "

Ignoring her, Graham held out a hand. "Sir, I'll see some identification, please?"

Killian dug in his wallet and produced a Massachusetts driver's license.

"Bit old to be a student, aren't you?" Graham turned it over, studied the back, glanced at the photo on the front again, and frowned, as if trying to compute how the mild-mannered, bespectacled academic, somehow managing to look like a dreamboat even in the clutches of the DMV camera, could bear even a passing resemblance to the leather-clad schizoid of his present acquaintance. "You're from Boston?"

"Live there, aye."

Graham scrutinized it for a moment longer, glanced around at the house (nothing was amiss except for the fact that they had broken into it, that had to count for something) and then made an executive decision. "Could be this is just a misunderstanding. But if so, I want to find out exactly how. If you'll just accompany me back to the station for a quick chat. . .?"

"Conscientious man of the law, aren't you?" Killian did not sound altogether approving. Not at all, in fact, and he made a motion to his breast pocket, where he had somehow managed to hide the hook before Graham appeared. But Emma hissed at him, and he reluctantly dropped his hand. "What if I say no?"

"Then I'm afraid I'll have to use the cuffs." Graham held them out with a wry half-smile. "Just keep in mind, this is me asking politely."

"Fellow gentleman? Well, I'm not adverse to being tied up, in certain circumstances." Killian's eyes performed the briefest of sideways flicks toward Emma. "But I'll have to take the mulligan on this one, mate. No need even to go to the station."

"Very well. Then you'll explain right now." Graham put a hand casually on his hip, next to the gun holster. "As for you, Emma, I can't understand how even a college party could get so out of hand as to drive four hours here, but surely you need to get back to school?"

Emma squirmed. "I – don't have classes today."

"You'll be giving your parents a ring, then?"

She opened and shut her mouth far less intelligently than was to be expected of a student who'd gotten as much scholarship money as she had. "I don't think they're home."

With every feeble answer they were giving him, Graham's eyes narrowed further, the unmistakable look of a man who had located a rat, but was still making flailing, failing attempts to nab it. "Why are you really here?"

"An accident," Emma insisted, at the same time Killian said, "The curse."

Graham looked utterly blank. "Come again?"

"The curse," Killian repeated. "The reason nobody can remember who they are, the reason I couldn't find this bloody place without Emma. Can't be sure if things are changing or not, but I can't reckon who you'd be, exactly. You do look faintly familiar, but I can't think why."

Graham was clearly waiting for the end of the sentence just so he could deny it, but instead, an extraordinary expression of troubled confusion crossed his face. He started to say something, then shook his head. But Emma, exceedingly against her will, remembered what her mother had said, when she had called home in an attempt to get Graham to come patrolling out here (which was, of course, currently biting them smartly in the posterior). Mary Margaret had said something about Graham having strange dreams about wolves running in the forest, and his apparent conviction that she, Emma, had something to do with them, that her presence or absence from Storybrooke had triggered them. Also that because of that, he had helped her parents get into the locked record office, against official protocol, in futile search of dirt on Gold.

Glancing at his face, she could see that he was likewise putting two and two together. "A curse, that's. . ." He shook his head again, but wasn't denying it as vigorously as might be expected. Instead he said, "Emma, _why_ are you and your family after Mr. Gold? It's dangerous."

Killian looked just as startled as she doubtless did. "What, lass? You'reafter him too?"

 _"Too?"_ Graham glared at Killian. "What are you getting her mixed up in, _mate?"_

The scent of testosterone in the room was almost overwhelming – Graham and Killian in identical belligerent postures, one casually reaching for a gun and the other for a hook, and Emma saw that this was on the brink of getting out of hand. "Look," she intervened. "Graham. You did my parents a big favor the other day, with the record office. My mom said you took care to honor my request when you heard that I made it. And I was just wondering. . . why?

The sheriff, like all men of the law, had not expected to have the tables of questioning turned on him. He blinked, running a hand through his sandy curls. "I. . . it's not important, I'm sure, but ever since you've been gone this year, I've had these. . . these dreams."

"What sort?" Killian and Emma said in unison.

"Just. . . dreams. About wolves. Sometimes I'm with them, sometimes I'm just watching, but they're always there. They want to talk to me. Make me remember something. I just. . ." At that moment, Graham recollected himself and cleared his throat sternly. "None of your business."

Killian grinned, slowly, slyly. "Ah. At least _one_ of you in this place is starting to realize that nothing is what it seems."

Graham stared at him suspiciously, but Emma, who'd known him for most of her life, could tell that he desperately wanted to ask more questions, that there was something in him that wasn't nearly as skeptical as he pretended, and that something the pirate had said was having an unfortunate resonance. She still had no idea how to get them out of this, however, and was just calculating the odds of pretending to be sick or starting to cry or faking a faint, when Graham's face went suddenly and strangely slack. He jerked, pressing a hand to his chest, then said, "Actually, come on. I'm going to take you to the station after all."

"What?" Killian protested. "Here I thought we were bloody friends, not – "

"I don't have a choice!" Graham barked, startling both of them. "I just – I have to, all right? Come on, both of you. Let's go."

Emma shot a quick, desperate look at the sofa, under which she had kicked Killian's sword. She couldn't exactly bend down and pull out that thing, but if they left it here – a blaring siren to announce to Gold that someone, and a _particular_ someone, had been sniffing in his house –

Too late. They had to leave it. Oh God. That wouldn't come back to haunt them at _all._

More or less compliantly, Killian and Emma followed Graham down the steps of the mansion to the sheriff's cruiser, still idling at the curb. Compliantly enough, in fact, that Emma was furtherly suspicious of what he was up to – did he want to get a better look at the station or something, figure out how to best plan for a break-in? But Killian behaved like a model citizen during the entire drive, radiating choirboy innocence, and when Graham pulled into the reserved parking spot, he exited the cruiser with no fuss at all. He offered Emma his hand, pointedly clipping Graham's similar attempt to do so, and after an eye-roll at both of them, she got out on her own.

The three of them headed into the sheriff's office, a place where Emma had only been once in her life, with the awkward little underage drinking incident. It looked the same now as it had then; Graham was still bad at picking up his papers and files and used coffee cups and donut wrappers, and his brown leather bomber jacket was sprawled out on the desk. And behind it –

"Hello, Sheriff." Regina Mills rose to her feet, smiling. As always, not a black hair was out of place, her makeup was immaculate, and her business suit pressed and starched. "And. . . Emma? Emma Nolan! What on earth are you doing here, sweetheart? Who's your. . . friend?"

Emma had always been frightened of the formidable mayor of Storybrooke; she'd had too many childhood incidents with her, uncomfortably aware of the fact that Regina more or less openly hated her parents for no discernible reason, and she was promptly rendered tongue-tied. But Killian subtly shoved her behind him, an instinctive defensive maneuver that she didn't understand, and answered for himself. "Name's Killian Jones, my lady. Still."

Regina gazed back at him, so long and so coolly and so consideringly, that Emma found it suddenly impossible to believe that this was any kind of coincidence. Did they _know_ each other? Was that what this look meant? It certainly was no kind of friendly, stopping an inch short of flatly challenging, loaded with old familiarity and open disdain. Killian kept his body between her and Regina, shifting his weight on the balls of his feet when Emma tried to get around him, and there could be no doubt that he was, consciously or unconsciously, shielding her from the older woman. But come on, Regina could be the Ice Queen, but she wasn't _evil_ for God's –

Graham, meanwhile, had likewise noted their moment of mutual recognition. He glanced from Regina to Killian, baffled. "Did I miss something? Were you expecting him?"

"I wasn't. Last man in the world I would imagine turning up here. . . or perhaps not." Regina smiled again. "Well, as you can see, there's nothing here to interest you, and we'll make sure everything gets settled. No need to worry, just – "

"He was talking about a curse."

The voice caused everyone in the room to look around in total confusion, until they discovered that the interruption had come from Graham. He appeared taken aback by his own brio, but doggedly forged ahead. "This. . . man, he was saying something about a curse. About something that made us forget who we are. And then this. . . compunction to come here, like it always is when you ask me to do something, I can never resist, I can only. . . it's a lie, isn't it? Or what? What is it, Regina?"

The mayor blinked. "Graham, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, but I. . . things have been happening ever since Emma left town, and. . . I know it sounds crazy. Just tell me what's going on, and we can settle it."

"You've been working very hard recently, and maybe you need a break," Regina said soothingly, patting Graham's hand. Her eyes, however, were fixed on Killian, cold and narrow. "Paid time off, rest and relaxation – it should do the trick. Storybrooke will be fine, it's not as if – "

Graham flinched, but seemed unable to pull away. Emma stared at all three of them. She wasn't sure why, but this had suddenly become a hell of a lot creepier than a moment ago, some dark, weirdly sexual undertone to the mayor's possessiveness, and how Graham couldn't look her in the eye. In a moment, she might even start to believe Killian's prattle about curses and things not being what they looked like and. . . no. It was still a lot of fancy tricks and nonsense.

It was Regina herself who broke the spell. "Well," she said, clapping her hands. "I don't want to cause a scandal for anyone, so let's just get this tidied up. Mr. . . . Jones, you'll go back to Boston with Emma, I'm sure? I know how much her parents have sacrificed for her college education, it would really be a shame if anything happened to ruin that. As you can see, there's nothing else for us to worry about, so. . . if you'll be on your way?" Then, as if just thinking of it, she added, "Oh! Let me get you something for the road. I'll be back in a jiffy."

Emma and Killian exchanged genuinely mystified looks, but waited as Regina disappeared down the hall and went out to her car. After about five minutes, she returned, with a piping hot pastry steaming up a plastic ziplock bag. "I was doing a bit of baking this morning, and I know it's a long drive to Boston. Here, my specialty."

Emma was furtherly puzzled, but took it. It looked like some kind of fruit turnover, it did smell heavenly, and if Regina was going to feed them and wish them well rather than press charges, she wasn't going to quibble with their miraculous good fortune. In fact, she was eager to get out of there before the mayor could change her mind, and although Graham looked as if he was desperately trying to signal Killian with his eyes, she grabbed him and pulled him down the steps before the sheriff could ask any more incriminating questions. "Come on, let's go."

"So eager to go back there, are we?" Killian stood on the front steps, still gazing back at the station. "You still think there's absolutely nothing out of the ordinary here?"

"Okay, I'll admit that was weird, but Regina's weird. And she's right, you know. Gold's not here and therefore there's no reason for you to drop a firebomb into the middle of this place." What the hell Emma was going to do if her hypothesis was correct, and Gold was in Boston with her parents. . . oh God, no, she couldn't think about that now. "Can we _please_ just go?"

"Suppose you can." Graham's voice came from the front door, startling them both. "Regina says so. Hop in the cruiser, I'll give you a ride back to your car."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Killian's black Audi had been retrieved from its parking spot on the street outside Gold's mansion, and under Graham's watchful eye, Killian and Emma had both obediently gotten into it and pulled away. Emma kept throwing glances back at the house, unable to forget about Killian's sword still hiding under the sofa, and then realized that this was in itself a fact that something strange, some corrosive alchemy, had indeed started to work in her thoughts during this long, surreal forty-eight hours. If it was all just a demented lie, if Killian was obviously not Captain Hook, if Gold was an innocent albeit brusque and hermitical eccentric, then why was she worried about him striking back? About knowing who that blade belonged to?

They headed out. Emma leaned back in her seat, wondering when this craziness was going to end, actually wondering if Killian's offer to make everything go away was still good – then reminded herself that it didn't matter. That offer was contingent on her stepping aside and letting him murder Gold, and she'd already decided that she wasn't going down that road. Not that it wasn't tempting, so tempting. But as bad as everything was, that would make it even –

Just then, tey turned onto the main drag and drove past Storybrooke General Hospital. There was a car pulled up in front of the veranda. And in a day already filled with unpleasant surprises, Emma thereupon got another one.

Because she recognized the car. It was the silver Lexus that had picked her up when she was fleeing Neal's apartment on that miserable morning after, after the concert and the club and the blackout and the fuckwit deciding it was a great opportunity to get some. The young woman named Tamara, the singer whose stage name was Tiger Lily, who'd given her a ride back to BC in time for her disastrous math test and then disappeared before Emma could thank her.

It was her. No mistaking it. The long black hair, the elegant, slender profile, the cool expression. Tamara was opening the back door and helping out another young woman, this one disheveled and dirty and confused-looking. A young woman with glossy brown curls and blue eyes, wearing a torn white hospital gown as if she'd escaped from this very establishment and tried to make a run for it. A young woman who, Emma realized in a further freezing blast of revelation, quite neatly fit the description for the person Killian had purportedly seen wandering in the woods, on their way into Storybrooke. The reason he'd parked and pulled over and gone to search.

Emma's reaction must have been audible, because Killian turned sharply. "What, lass? What?"

"I. . . no. Nothing." God, she needed to get a grip. It was perfectly normal and reasonable that Tamara could have come here, found the young woman in the woods, and tried to help her as she'd helped Emma. Emma, after all, had said that to Killian herself. People could come to Storybrooke if they wanted. They weren't cursed. That was ridiculous, even if it looked like Graham had momentarily been on the verge of believing it. It was fine.

(Was that how Tamara had crossed the town line? Was the young woman from here? Had she been in the hospital? For how long? But Emma hadn't heard of any accident or someone getting hurt or. . .)

No. She wanted to go back to Boston. She wanted her life again. She didn't want this shit.

Emma turned away, tightened her seatbelt, and fixed her eyes on the road ahead.

* * *

It took the better part of the afternoon to drive back to Massachusetts. Emma hadn't said a word about where she thought Gold had gone, not wanting to encourage Killian's delusions, but how easily he was willing to leave Storybrooke hinted ominously that he might just have arrived at the same conclusions. A knot of slimy, hard anxiety had twisted in her stomach, and she dug her fingernails into the seat, tearing out pieces of the leather. Regina's turnover had been thrown in her backpack, but she still didn't feel hungry. She hadn't really felt right since waking up in Neal's bed on that godforsaken morning. Who could blame her, what with everything?

She was afraid that they would find a federal drug squad waiting when, having fought through rush hour traffic, they finally pulled into BC around five-thirty PM. It brought a rush of tears to her eyes to see it again; it looked as if nothing had changed, and everything would be fine. Shaky-kneed after her terrifying whirlwind adventure, she got out of the car and stood in the slanting golden dusk, taking deep breaths. Then she turned to Killian. "Are they going to. . . like. . . throw me out of the dorms?"

"Not if you don't tell anyone you're in them." He shrugged. "If you do have a problem with your card, come to me and I'll get in contact with my student who work-studies in the Housing office. She won't be sad to do me a favor, if you follow."

Emma swallowed, nodded, and then, not really wanting to have anything further to do with him right now or possibly ever again, set off across campus. It looked more beautiful than ever, but she cringed at every shout, every passing student, waiting to be caught and apprehended. Finally, however, she made it to Walsh, swiped her key card, held her breath, and let it out in a rush as the access light clicked green. She headed into the dorm, up the stairs, and into her suite, praying that Wendy, Alice, and Irene (their fourth roommate, who was something of a ghost) would be gone, as she felt nowhere near explaining anything.

Thank God, she had the place to herself. She headed into her room and threw herself on her own bed, still unmade as always, shivering even though it wasn't that cold. _Does anyone know? Has the entire administration been told? Are they going to arrest me if I go to class tomorrow?_

She lay there as it got darker and darker, slanting shadows over the ceiling. She didn't dare go out and get dinner, and she was finally starting to feel hungry. A ransacking of her mini-fridge turned up nothing but a week-old container of takeout Chinese that was beginning to smell off, so she wrinkled her nose and chucked it. She was just about to grit her teeth and face the music when to her abject relief, she remembered Regina's turnover.

It was cold in its plastic bag by now, but still appealingly flaky and fragrant when she pulled it out, and she let out a long breath. Oh, thank you sweet baby Jesus.

Emma pulled on a pair of fuzzy socks and padded over to her computer, wondering when (never) would be a good time to call her parents and tell them what was up; her cell phone had run out of battery hours and hours ago. They were probably beside themselves with worry, but. . . if Gold _was_ with them, the moment she called them, it would draw them here like a magnet, here with him, here to where Killian was, and she just didn't. . .

Emma shook her head. She didn't feel ready for this, for any of this. She would just surf the internet and look at pictures of cats with stupid captions, and feel better. One day, she would. That was the theory. So she curled her feet under her, opened a Mozilla browser, and, picking up the turnover, took a big bite.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Storybrooke, Maine** _

_**Yesterday Afternoon** _

"You have no idea what you're asking, dearie." Robert Gold remained where he was: stationed firmly behind the pawnshop counter, the model ship on one side and the mobile on the other, a mobile that seemed faintly familiar to Mary Margaret, but she immediately dismissed it as coincidence. "I've no notion how your daughter managed to get herself arrested for – what was it again?"

"She didn't say." Most of the time, Mary Margaret was a mild-mannered elementary school teacher, but right now, she looked fully capable of pulling Gold's vitals out through his nose, Xena Warrior Princess in a sweater set and pearls. "But we – I got a call from her earlier today. Actually I missed it, I had to pick it up with my messages. But she said she's been arrested, they took her cell phone, and they're holding her at a detention center in Boston. Frankly, I don't _care_ what it is. I know she didn't do it. It's some kind of horrible misunderstanding."

"Doubtless you can explain it away, then? Pair of charming folks like you." Gold turned away and began to pace down the length of the glass-topped counter, cane tapping a deliberate rhythm on the floor. "What exactly is the impediment? Surely you can simply bail her."

Mary Margaret clenched her fists. "We can't pay it."

"There's an entire bail bonds industry out there willing to help you with that little problem, dearie." Gold stopped in front of an old wooden case, snapped it open, and began to ostentatiously polish the tarnished brass sextant inside, clearly a sign that to him, the conversation was over. "Can't see what it's a thing to do with me. Good day."

At that, David moved forward. "Gold, you son of a bitch. Decades of 'fixing up' any problem that anyone in this town encounters, and all of a sudden you don't have the time of day for us? You like Emma, you've always taken an interest in her. And now our daughter is in jail on some God knows what setup, might be losing her entire future and her academic career and her good name and…" He hesitated, clearly fighting his primal impulse to deck the smaller man with one fell swoop. "All right. What's your price?"

"For once, it's not about _my_ price _."_ Gold continued to polish the sextant. "I haven't left Storybrooke for a day. Not in almost twenty years. All the while, I've watched you merrily trot to New York for Christmas, and to Martha's Vineyard for summer, and taking Emma to college in Boston… watched it and never said a word, watched it and endured it somehow. And how do you repay me? Digging in my business and meddling with what should be left buried, and now asking me to throw away the last vested interest I have in keeping you – _and_ your darling daughter – safe. I could have been much more uncivilized about turning you down, but I have always been a man of culture. So." He pointed. "There's the door. Don't let it rudely collide with your nether aspects as you make your exit."

David and Mary Margaret exchanged baffled, frantic glances. They didn't understand half of what he was saying, especially his cryptic inference that his not leaving Storybrooke had something to do with keeping them – specifically, them – safe. But from _who?_ Their life, while not without the dramas endemic to families and small towns, had been consistently and sincerely happy. Emma was their pride and joy, their marriage solid as a rock, their lean financial circumstances never standing in the way if they wanted to make something special happen. They owned their historic Victorian home and had always had steady jobs, the respect of their colleagues and fellow citizens. To suddenly learn that there might have been some lurking shadow threat, held at bay all these years but never vanquished, was a shock.

"I don't understand," Mary Margaret admitted at last. "What are you talking about?"

"Only that you already owe me a debt you have no chance of ever paying off. And indeed, I did it for Emma, but the timing's all wrong. I have another eight years before I can afford to let my protection end. Fancy fending for yourself all that time? Didn't think so."

"Gold." David placed one fist gently on the counter. "You have exactly thirty seconds to tell us what the hell you're talking about, or so help me I am breaking everything in this shop."

"Once a peasant, always a peasant." Gold tipped a one-shouldered, magnificently dismissive shrug, but put the sextant down and swiveled around like a deck gun. "Very well. Your daughter has a destiny, and it's meant to happen when she is twenty-eight. At least, it was; I confess that I am no longer entirely certain. She was supposed to escape what befell you, but she didn't. It permanently changed the structure of the entire thing, and left me, if I ever wanted to see it undone at all, with no other option than to protect you. That's why you have your happy ending here, instead of the misery you were meant for. It's because of _me._ And in return, I expect that Emma will play _her_ part, and return when she's supposed to, to do what must be done."

The Nolans continued to look blindsided.

"In other words," Gold concluded delicately, "this is nothing more than a bump on the road, and I see no reason to endanger myself for it. Indeed, if your daughter loses her life in the world, perhaps she'll be more inclined to come back here. Fare _well."_

David and Mary Margaret stared at each other, destitute and furious. Neither of them had the foggiest idea of what to do next, how they could possibly help their daughter, and David shook his head. "I bet it was that Neal kid," he muttered. "Never got a look at him, always some excuse or another. Never liked that he was always running away and – "

Gold glanced up sharply. "Neal?"

"Neal Cassidy," David said, confused. "Emma's boyfriend. That's all we ever got to learn about him, because he… yeah, like I said, he was always on the lam. And I didn't really feel comfortable with the way she was looking at her history professor, so – "

"History professor?" Gold interrupted.

David glared at him. "For someone who explicitly announced his intentions not to help her, you suddenly seem very interested in my daughter's personal life."

"Can't help it if you talk too much for your own good, dearie. Who was this man?"

Neither David nor Mary Margaret felt entirely comfortable with the direction this conversation had just taken, but they had both grasped that something had changed in the last minute. Not only that, but there was a chance, however slim, that this new information was altering his previously stated intent to leave them high and dry. If that was the case, he could have the complete family history and any skeletons in the closet that he wanted. "I… I think his name was – oh God, something Irish – wait, Killian. That was it. Killian Jones."

"Killian _Jones?"_ The way Gold repeated the name, almost in a snarl, left no doubt whatsoever that it was intimately (and deeply unpleasantly) familiar. "Well, well. You don't say."

"What?" David began. "I don't understand, how do you – "

"First rule, dearie." Gold held up a hand. "If you want me to help you in this, which I am abruptly considering doing after all, you don't get to ask any questions. It would be far better for your own safety if you obey. Because by leaving, I'll be breaking a certain deal I made, as well as my ability to protect you both _and_ your daughter. Is that really what you want?"

"Please," Mary Margaret begged, close to tears. "Please just help us."

Gold divided a long stare between her and her husband, reptilian and unblinking as a crocodile lying in wait in the rushes. "Very well," he said at length. "As any good lawyer should, I am obliged to inform you that I cannot be held liable for what comes next. As well, I am only able to leave Storybrooke for three days. And if I tell you that we need to come back, we are damned well going to come back, regardless of mitigating circumstances."

"But why?"

"That rule about questions, dearie." Gold flashed what would have been an amiable smile, if not for the bared teeth. "I really wasn't joking."

With that he turned, opened a safe behind the counter, and removed two items: a mangy brown scarf and a chipped porcelain teacup. He placed them on the glass as reverently as if they were holy relics, an intent, exultant look on his face. Without looking up, he sensed the Nolans' stupefaction and, for once, took pity on them. "They're both from true love, and the only artifacts I have left with any power. Therefore…" A pause as he concentrated. "It should do."

Despite knowing that she was in line for a curt rebuke, Mary Margaret still opened her mouth, desperate to ask, to make _some_ sense out of this entire godforsaken situation. And then, the words on her lips curled up and died squeaking.

As carefully as a street magician performing some elegant feat of legerdemain, Gold drew a beautiful, long-stemmed red rose out of the teacup. He placed it on the counter, where it hovered upright without support, and put a glass dome over it. "By the time the last petal falls," he said, as casually as if he had done nothing more remarkable than make a cup of tea, "I must be back in Storybrooke. Which is, as I said, approximately seventy-two hours – there is no more magic left than that. If not…" He smiled again, twistedly. "Let's just say nobody's going to enjoy it."

"Magic…." One could almost hear the circuits burning out in David Nolan's brain. "That's a pretty impressive parlor trick, I'll grant you, but…"

"Tick tock, dearies." Gold draped the ratty brown scarf around his neck and moved the chipped cup closer to the rose, taking his hand away slowly, as if he could not bear to let go. Yet his voice was crisp. "Are we going to waste time in palavering, or are we going to save your dearest daughter?"

"The latter."

"Excellent." Gold took a better grip on his cane. "You're all going to die now, so I suppose it's best for you to enjoy what time you have left. Well then. Your car or mine?"

* * *

Graham Humbert had been the sheriff of Storybrooke for almost twenty years. At least he _thought_ it was going on twenty years, because every time he counted back in his head, tried to fix the first day on the job, if he had ever done something different in his life, it continually fled like a shadow in a hall of mirrors. There were times when he felt certain it must not have been that long, because otherwise he would have been practically a teenager when he started, and he didn't _feel_ (or look) as if he was almost forty. Other times he had the oddest sensation that he was dreaming, had been dreaming longer than he could ever imagine, and that he was about, finally, to wake into a brave and terrible new world.

His job had been as boring as only the sheriff of a small town's could be. Rounding up curfew-breakers, the occasional underage drinkers or graffiti vandalizers; there'd been a month a few years back when the toll bridge was hit up every other day. But he'd found an excuse to drive out there jut recently, simply on the ridiculous basis that in his latest wolf dream, he'd been running in the woods out there. Running in search of… something.

It sounded ridiculous, it _was_ ridiculous, and for more reasons than that alone, he had done his best to keep his excursions quiet from Regina. He wasn't sure it was aboveboard for law enforcement to be so literally in bed with the mayor, and he likewise wasn't sure how he had ended up there in the first place. She had some hold on him he couldn't explain; she could tell him to do something and he would, regardless if he wanted it or not. It was dangerous for him to pull the leash as much as he had, stealthily slipping David and Mary Margaret into the records office, but their daughter…

His wolf dreams had something to do with Emma. He couldn't possibly have said why, yet he knew somehow that she was his only chance. But that wasn't something you said to the nineteen-time winner of the Most Overprotective Father Award. It was all a giant mess.

At the moment, Graham was sitting in his cruiser, scarfing his usual dinner of sandwich and cold decaf coffee. He was fiddling with the radio restlessly in hopes of picking up the rock station in Portland; he'd always wanted to go to Portland, which even though just over a hundred miles away, felt like the other side of the world. He'd wanted to leave Storybrooke for a while, in fact, but for some reason he never had. He couldn't remember if he ever had.

 _What is_ wrong _with me? This isn't normal._ The more Graham tried to think critically about his situation, the more holes he discovered. Other people must have left Storybrooke; the Nolans had certainly left Storybrooke, taking their daughter to college in Boston. But when he'd tried to consult the town psychiatrist, Dr. Hopper had told him gently that this was probably just a midlife crisis and he could use a vacation. Sound advice, so far as it went, but –

Hold up.

Graham sat up straight, nearly dropping his BLT in his lap, as a sleek black boat of a Cadillac powered past him, down the road beyond. He'd seen that car before, parked in the driveway of the solitary mansion on its serene treed street, where he'd been making extra patrols on Emma's request. While he couldn't be sure, as his glimpse had been only fleeting, he had been almost certain that it was her father in the passenger seat. And if David Nolan was leaving town with Mr. Gold, it was beyond doubt that Mary Margaret was as well.

 _I could follow them. Drive after them. Just to see._ The idea seized Graham with a sick, giddy hope, and for an instant, he actually thought he could get away with it. But instead his hands were already reaching for the dash phone, following orders as dutifully as if they had been programmed. Regina had told him long ago that he was to call her immediately if he ever saw Mr. Gold leaving Storybrooke for any reason, and Graham had simply chalked it up to her paranoia. Everyone knew Gold never left, ever. But he'd agreed, of course, and now…

The phone rang, once and then twice. Just when he'd started to pray she wouldn't pick up, it cut out and Regina answered, all business. "Mayor Mills."

She had to know it was him, as no one else ever called her on this line, but Regina was always convinced of bugs and wiretaps and other nefarious devices. So very well, he'd play her game. "Mayor, Sheriff Humbert here. The target was just spotted leaving."

Regina was silent. He could hear her breathing quicken, fast and sharp and excited, her voice darken with lust. "Are you _sure?_ He crossed the town line? He actually _went?"_

"He hasn't come back." Graham peered down the road, just in case, but the black Cadillac was long gone. "It was definitely his car."

"He _left,"_ Regina repeated, sounding as delighted as a child on Christmas morning. She seemed to have completely forgotten that Graham was on the other end. "He broke our deal? He _knows_ what happens now. I can go after them, I can go after all of them. Foolish, very foolish. I never thought he'd miscalculate that badly."

"Mayor?" Graham frowned, wrinkling his brow. "What are you talking about?"

Regina caught herself. "Nothing. Well, Sheriff, thank you very much. You've done extremely well, and you can have the rest of the night off." He could hear her gathering up her things. "I'll be taking an early evening as well."

"Where are you going?" Graham put the cruiser in gear and pulled the wheel around. A night off. He almost didn't know what to do with himself.

"Just a few errands." Her heels clicked on the parquet. "Have to drop by the hospital. And then… and then. It so happens, my dear, that I am going to do a spot of baking."

* * *

_**Boston, Massachusetts** _

_**This Evening** _

Killian Jones unlocked his office door and pushed it open, dim glow striping the dark floor. It was a bit more of a mess than even he recollected leaving it, papers heaped on the desk and his books looking distinctly as if they'd been rummaged through, packing tape slit on the boxes he hadn't got round to unpacking and file cabinet accordioned out – all in all, one of the most bloody obvious search-and-ransacking jobs he'd ever seen in his life (and speaking as a professional who'd conducted more than a few of them himself). Eyes narrow, keeping a firm grip on the hook in his breast pocket, he advanced inside and hit the lights.

They flared on to reveal nothing – or at least no one apart from himself, which he'd expected. Nonetheless, he expelled a frustrated curse and rocked back on his heels, turning in a circle as if he expected the miscreants to have dived out the window, but considering it was the third floor, it was a plunge that even an inebriated fraternity brother would have thought twice of. Fortunately, Killian didn't keep of anything of outstanding value in his office, or even in his apartment; he'd left most of it back in London. Back with the only person in this world he trusted a brass dam, and who would probably chuck all of it out on the street with the rubbish, if she got wind of what he had just done.

No matter that. Someone had been fingering his stuff, and he didn't intend to let it go unsolved. Still, the reason he had come back to his office now had nothing to do with further vigilante justice. He had his literature class to teach tomorrow morning, and what with the unavoidable distractions recently present in his life, he'd already welched once on giving them back their essays on the social dynamics of Dickens. He had to at least try to get them done.

Killian put on his reading glasses, draped his leather jacket over the back of the swivel chair, and uncapped his red pen as if drawing his sword (he'd have to find some way to get back to Storybrooke and retrieve it, something that made his head hurt even to contemplate). Hook kept in easy reach in case its use should be suddenly called for, he sat down and pulled off the first essay from the stack, noticing the student's name neatly typed at the top. _Alice Carroll._ Well, and speak of an appropriate moniker for a Victorian literature class. It made him wonder, suddenly.

Killian marked steadily, time whiling away on the old clock on the wall. He immediately demerited any poor sod dim enough to begin their essay with the Webster's dictionary definition of anything; it was one of those cop-outs that any professor worth the paper their degree was printed on couldn't stand. It still amazed him that he'd taken so well to the academic life, but in certain matters, he had a first-person insight that even the most detailed textbook couldn't match. There wasn't much call around here for a pirate, unless it was in some place called Disneyland, and he had more pride than that. During his acclimation in London, he had learned that this wretched place had certain … ideas of him, all of which he found deeply insulting.

He had almost knocked out the lot when he heard the sirens. Faint at first and then coming closer and closer, until he frowned and got up and peered out his office window, could see blue and red as they arrived across campus, up St. Thomas More Road by the look of it, up near…

Bloody hell, no. No shred of good reason to think they were going to Walsh dormitory, and even if they were, that it had anything to do with her. Especially here in Boston, where every other twenty-something was a college student, there was very little surprise in the city's emergency rooms as to what could be and had been snorted, smoked, shot up, or slammed down, and even a Catholic school had plenty of partiers. Killian had flirted with the religion during his time at Trinity; Irish Catholicism was its own world, its own set of rules, and while he was well aware of the problems with it, it had given him enough refuge from his dark and twisted mind that he considered himself one at least nominally. He'd befriended a priest about his own age, Father Michael Kovak, who'd served as spiritual counselor and drinking companion on occasion, but still had no idea of his true past. Kovak had urged him to be baptized, as it wasn't usually the case that you could take Catholic communion without being officially sprinkled, but Killian held back. He didn't take communion anyway. That or holy water might finish him off. Whoever said that the sacrament forgave all sins clearly had never met him.

Lips tight, Killian told himself to do something useful, such as finishing the essays. He'd spent enough time being distracted by Emma Nolan recently, strange tough vulnerable intriguing smart fragile young woman that she was, and he really did intend to stop… once she got him to what he wanted, that was. Time and again he reassured himself that he was only drawn to her by virtue of what she represented, but time and again he failed at convincing himself. If only she wasn't his student. But even if not, she was over a decade his junior and from _there_ , with them… he wasn't sure who her parents were, exactly, but if they were from Storybrooke…

He didn't want to think about what he'd seen when she kissed him. When he kissed her.

Killian was far from an inexperienced, fumbling boy. He'd had a few flings at Trinity, but cut them off if they ever verged remotely on turning into something more serious. He wasn't the kind of man who normally kept a cold bed, needed the strength and softness and sweetness of a woman, but he'd lived as celibately as Father Kovak (or at least as he assumed Father Kovak did, having not gone prying into the priest's dirty linen) trying to prove a point to Milah's ghost. And then before her… _I've had many a man's wife._ Every time he broke down so far as to actually sleep with a woman now, however, he hated himself even more than usual.

It was something he had instructed himself savagely to get over, in his process of having a new life here. But he'd never quite been able to do it, and had taken to wearing a wedding band even though he had never been married, both in memory of Milah and to fend off any enquiries. He didn't _want_ to move on, had been clutching at the last possibility of revenge, even though it looked more and more unlikely every day. No matter what he told anyone, no matter what he did, the job he'd taken here, he was only living for the chance.

And now…

The sirens were still wailing, the lights still flashing. And then, out of nowhere, a searing pain erupted across his left wrist.

Killian hissed in pain, the red pen clattering from his right hand as he reached over to snatch at it. It hadn't had phantom aches like this in a long time, but this felt quite a bit more present, and far worse. Not altogether surprising. He hadn't entirely done his bit at holding up his end of the bargain, could see her face in his head as she told him under which circumstances, exactly, he'd get it back. _You can't revert into Hook. Do you hear me? If you do, you'll lose it again._

He gritted his teeth, eyes watering, mouthing a few particularly colorful expletives. The thick scar felt like it was burning, like sinews or sutures were coming undone, and no, bloody no, that was the last thing he felt of a temperament to explain. Panicking, he fumbled the hook off the desk and tried to stuff it into its secret (well, relatively speaking) hiding place in the bottom desk drawer, thinking that if he could just keep on fooling everyone now, he could –

The sharp tip crinkled against paper. A note. A note left in the drawer, a note with exactly two words. A note to freeze him bloody solid.

_Hello, pirate._

Hello, beastie.

And then, horrifyingly, Killian Jones understood.

* * *

Nothing seemed out of place at first. Emma felt strange, strange enough that she frowned at the turnover and wondered if she should eat any more of it, then turned back to the computer, opening her school inbox and forcing herself to realize that she had to finish the pirate project for Killian's class; it was due on Monday, and she hadn't even done all the research for it, much less typed it up. But as she was still convinced that she was going to be arrested the instant she set foot outside the dorm, she hadn't decided if she should. If someone found out, if the feds found out about her crossing state lines and avoiding being an accessory to murder by the skin of her –

That was when the first pain took her, low and hard in the belly like a punch.

She emitted a shocked whimper and curled up like a shrimp, trying to ride through it, thinking it was too early for her period, but relieved that it was coming; she'd only now thought again about Neal and her blackout and the possibility that she could be – no, she wasn't, wasn't that the sort of thing a woman was supposed to just know? She'd forgotten all about it again in the trauma of her arrest and excursion to Storybrooke in company with Professor Psychotic, but –

The second pain was worse than the first, driving her off the chair and onto the floor. It was so strong that she couldn't move or even breathe until it passed, a spasm locking her muscles and twisting her stomach in half. She could feel something hot and wet in her underpants, dripping down her thighs, and looked to see a slow leak of blood flowering in the crotch of her jeans, turning the denim dark with crimson. The third pain threw her flat again, screaming.

Emma had enough sense to realize that something was extremely wrong, but she couldn't tell if it had happened organically or because of the bite of turnover she'd taken – but why would that have anything to do with anything? Gasping and gulping in agony, she turned over and started to crawl on her belly across the dorm room, trying to reach her phone, but remembered that it was out of battery – and then was utterly incapacitated as her body locked up, wrenching and shaking as if she was having an epileptic seizure. It was then that the word occurred to her, written across her malfunctioning brain in letters like fire.

_Poison._

She didn't understand how or why. Why would Regina want to poison her – or Killian, as it suddenly occurred to her might have been the mayor's actual target? There had been some unfriendly glances shooting between them, for sure… the way she'd had the sense that Killian was protecting her, trying to get between her and Regina, but… he'd been saying all kinds of crazy stuff, about the curse and about being Captain Hook and God knew what, he wasn't exactly a reliable authority, involving her in his delusions and –

Her body was completely out of her control. Emma could only sit, trapped in a small room in her mind, and watch detachedly as she wrenched, jerked, and started to retch as the toxin seared through her veins, eating into her heart. _Where was Wendy? Or Alice? Or Irene or anyone or…_ The state she was in, she would have been abjectly relieved to see fucking Neal. Someone, anyone. Had to call an ambulance. Had to find her. Even if it it was the FBI again, if they took her back to jail –

Her heels drummed, her hands tore uselessly, beating a tattoo into the floor. Froth oozed down her chin, her vision began to fade out into white noise. Above her, somewhere, she thought she heard footsteps, and tried to summon up enough breath and strength for a scream. _Wendy._ Thought she heard someone open the door, utter a shocked cry of fear and revulsion.

But whether it was her roommate or not, and what she made of discovering Boston College's prodigal daughter dying on the floor, Emma never found out. A great shadow settled over her, spreading its wings, soft and silent as a diving bird of prey. Then it lifted her up, gathered her into its bosom, and she let go and tumbled into pure and perfect blackness.


	11. Chapter 11

The hospital doors bent back like broken wings as the gurney raced through, the prone body under the white sheet being frantically tended to by a squadron of emergency personnel and paramedics, red and blue lights flashing from the ambulance bay. There were three people hurrying in after it, one man holding the woman by the elbow and the other standing among the chaos, staring after the gurney as it vanished into the trauma room, as the on-call doctor ran by still scrubbing up, pulling a mask over his face. Robert Gold didn't move, tapping his cane slowly and steadily on the floor, as he considered his options.

"What the hell!" David Nolan, the peasant, clearly did not intend to give him the luxury of time. Steering his distraught wife gently into a chair, he lunged forward and grabbed the pawnbroker by the arm, almost shaking him in desperation. "Is this what you were talking about? Who hurt her? Who would even _want_ to hurt her? Are you just going to stand there and – "

"Let go of me, if you'd be so kind." Gold crisply removed himself from the man's grasp.

"We made a deal!" David roared, startling several passing residents. "You were going to help Emma! You were going to save her!"

"I did save her, in case it escaped your attention." Gold still didn't turn. It was, so far as it went, the truth. When he'd concluded his business on the BC campus, confirmed his suspicions, and realized that this was already several orders of magnitude worse than previously assumed, he'd suggested to the Nolans that they go look in their daughter's dormitory. Having arrived at the correctional facility only to be told that a mysterious man had paid her bail and absconded with her, they were at a loss as to where else she could possibly have gone. But Gold had inquired discreetly, found out the name of this convenient benefactor, and put the pieces together from there. He'd been hoping still, somehow, that it was a mistake, that there just so chanced to be two men named Killian Jones, but he knew now that it wasn't.

 _A professor, indeed._ Would wonders never cease. He had to give the bastard credit; where better to hide than in plain sight, masquerading as a productive member of society? This did, however, raise the troubling question of just how Hook had followed him. Gold was quite sure that every avenue was closed off, that the curse had at least worked sufficiently to destroy magic (much to his chagrin) and there was no possible way to open a portal. But speak of the devil, there was.

As much as he wanted to pin Emma's current indisposition on his bitter rival, however, he had a hunch that it wasn't. No, he smelled someone else's lovely fingers all over this. _I warned them. I told them what would happen if I left._ It was far too much to hope that Regina's faithful watchdog had somehow missed his departure; she'd been wagering on it all along, after all. But nothing before now had moved him to even try. It was too dangerous. The rose left back in his shop, no magic even to ward the property, vulnerable to anyone who'd walk in, who'd. . .

David's voice snapped him out of his trance. "It doesn't count," Nolan said. "Cure her."

"With what?" Gold snapped. "What do you think I can do for her? Wave a wand? I'm a respectable businessman, _dearie_. Not a witch doctor."

The man's lips went white. Assuredly it _had_ been a shock for him and his dearly beloved spouse to stroll into their daughter's college dorm and find not just her, but her convulsing on the floor in some sort of fit, catatonic and frothing at the mouth. Mary Margaret had screamed and fallen to her knees next to Emma, David had madly fumbled for his telephone to call 911, and Gold had stood observing pitilessly. It was time that they knew the pain of losing a child. It was time they knew, even if badly and piecemeal, the price he had paid to keep them safe.

Nonetheless, for that very reason, it was still in his supreme interest to keep Emma alive, and when the paramedics arrived, Gold had been down at the door to meet them and show them where to go, as they got her strapped up and intubated and racing downtown to Massachusetts General. She was still alive, but barely, and he was hideously aware that it balanced on a knife's edge, that there was less than bugger-all he could do about it. _Can it truly be so easy for Regina to win?_ He doubted it, but the evidence was decidedly tilting in her favor just now.

Gold turned to pace. He wanted to scream at the delay, the time he was wasting; he had less than forty-eight hours left to be out of Storybrooke, and if Emma died, that window was shut forever. He'd agreed to help the Nolans in the first place out of the desperate conviction that this Neal Cassidy was Bae; he'd used the last drops of his own magic to look for his boy's face in this world, his name, leaving him only with those trinkets, Bae's shawl and Belle's cup. Now even that power was spent. _I am as helpless as a child._ And with that thrice-cursed pirate skulking in the nether. . .

At that moment, the shroud of silence in the waiting room was snapped as a pair of uniformed police officers stepped in. "Mr. and Mrs. David Nolan? You are Emma Nolan's parents?"

"Yes." David jerked up. "We are. Is she all right? What happened?"

"She's. . . " The officer was clearly choosing her words carefully. "Stable. For the moment. We'd like to ask you both some questions, if that's all right."

"We have our lawyer with us. You can talk to him."

 _Yet again, the dirty work falls to me._ Gold stepped forward, smiling as pleasantly as if he actually didn't want to murder everyone in this building, Emma possibly excepted. "Yes? What can I do for you, officers?"

"Your clients are aware that their daughter was bailed out of county jail yesterday night, and is awaiting trial on felony drug charges?"

Mary Margaret and David both went pale. They'd known that Emma had been arrested, of course, but not for what reason or under what alleged misdeed, and Gold decided to spare them the rigmarole. "Yes," he said briskly. "Next?"

"During police questioning, Miss Nolan claimed that the individual actually responsible for the crimes was one Neal Cassidy. Is this a person familiar to your clients?"

It was Gold's turn to jerk in surprise, though he thought he did a fair job at not letting it show on his face. He could feel David and Mary Margaret's eyes boring into the back of his head, but what they expected _him_ to do about it was quite beyond him. This was a twist he hadn't foreseen, and he intensely disliked being caught so off guard. If it _was_ his boy. . . a dark suspicion began to form in his mind. If Bae was still running from him, and for whatever reason had caught wind of this entire sordid saga, what better way to cover his tracks and flee. . . but wait, the Nolans had said that Neal Cassidy was Emma's paramour, her boyfriend, and if _all this time_ Gold's son had been here in Boston, with their daughter, and they'd never thought to say a bleeding _word. . ._ and gods knew where he'd gone _now. . ._

"Sir?" the police officer repeated.

Gold bared his teeth. "Yes," he said, soft and lethally. "Yes, it is."

The officers exchanged looks. "Can you elaborate on that?"

"It is my understanding that Mr. Cassidy was in a romantic relationship with Miss Nolan." Gold's fists clenched, aching for their vanished magic. If he had it, he'd level this place, turn it all to rubble, burn a trail of ruin across the city if need be. To be so close, to realize that his chance had in fact flitted away in the gloaming, eluding his grasp by a breath, was driving him to the bleak black edge of insanity. He might as well tuck his tail between his legs and return to Storybrooke now, crawl into his bed and quietly die like the old used-up cripple he was. There was nothing left. Gone. All gone.

Killian Jones had taken this from him as well. Again. Somehow. Gold was unclear on the details, but he didn't need them. The wretched bloody pirate had destroyed his life, his hope, the last slender thread he was clinging to. And in that moment, Gold realized that there was still one thing he could accomplish here. Forewarned was forearmed, as he always liked to say, and there was as yet the faintest chance that Jones didn't yet know that he was here in Boston. Though Gold's pride had gotten the better of him, leaving that note in his office, and all secrecy would thus be shot to hell when it was uncovered.

But still. He could do it. More than that, he would. Destroy absolutely everything the bastard had built here, let Boston College know in no uncertain terms just what sort of a viper they had taken to their breasts. Once Gold began to ply the board of trustees with incriminating information, they'd have no choice but to save face and dispose of Jones – a move easily made with a young professor in his first year, bereft of the security of tenure. Once his job was gone, Gold would see to it that he lost his apartment, his possessions, his money, his place in this world, his pride, anything and everything and everyone he loved or even remotely cared for, until he had finally ground the crawling vermin to dust beneath his heel. _I should have done it long ago. Should have killed them both. But instead I thought to leave him alive to suffer._

He felt very much, just then, as if he was about to explode. Let these innocents know who he was, _what_ he was, even if any sense of their own identity was long fled. He didn't need magic to be the Dark One, didn't need eerie eldritch lightning to kill them all and –

"Excuse me?" Right as he was about to fly off the handle, they were interrupted again – fortuitously for the Nolans and the police officers, who might never know how closely they'd diced with death. This time it was a white-coated lab technician, holding something sealed in a plastic bag that very closely resembled an inoffensive bakery pastry. A turnover, in fact. "You are David and Mary Margaret Nolan, Emma Nolan's parents?"

This was the second time they'd been asked that, but David still nodded. "Yes. What did – ?"

"Your daughter appears to have eaten from this." The lab tech held it up. "We've run diagnostics on it, but we can't tell exactly what's wrong. All we _can_ tell was that it was laced with an extremely virulent poison. If she'd eaten a bite more, sorry to say, you folks would be preparing for a funeral right now. The hospital has been made aware of Miss Nolan's legal situation. Is there anyone you can think of who might have a vested interest in. . . say. . . making sure she didn't talk further about her criminal charges?"

David and Mary Margaret exchanged an utterly aghast look, plainly shocked to realize what a gruesome underworld of crime and moral decay they'd inadvertently permitted their beloved daughter to be led into, Hades and Persephone redone in suburbia. But before they could open their bloody mouths, and say what they were doubtless about to say, Gold interrupted.

"Yes," he said. "And I can tell you exactly who."

* * *

Killian Jones took the stairs two, three, even four at a time, galloping headlong through the dark landings and hallways of Stokes, as if in total heedlessness of the fact that one false step would send him tumbling to break his bloody neck at the bottom. He didn't stop until he'd reached the security desk in the foyer, whereupon he took a moment to recollect himself and then launched himself at it. " _Who the hell did you let into my office?"_

The bored campus police officer, who'd been watching the Red Sox playoff game on his smartphone, looked up with a start. "Professor Jones? Can I help you?"

"Yes, you bloody well can help me, you miserable buggering carbuncle. Someone's been in my office to leave me a charming little note, and I am _most_ interested in what fable he foisted off on you in order to let him do so. When was he here? How long ago?"

The officer held up both hands. "Whoa, whoa. Professor, slow down. What are you talking about? I didn't let anyone into your office. Is something wrong? Was it broken into?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, you half-witted sack of sheep turds! Does it look like I'd be here if it hadn't been? Now get off your pasty doughnut-fed arse and tell me who – "

"Sir – sir, cool it one second, let's be civil and deal with this properly, can you just – "

Killian took a noisy breath through his nose, then clenched his fists hard enough to send a renewed jolt of pain through his left wrist. Ignoring it, he gritted through his teeth, "Very well. My apologies. That was not gentlemanly. Can you at least inform me when he was here?"

"When _who_ was here?"

"We need to take a look at your security tapes. Unless I quite badly miss my guess, there will have been a man here. Inconsequent stature, limp, walks with a cane, longish brown-grey hair. Likely wearing a suit. Robert Gold by name."

The officer still looked confused, but seemed to be coming around to the urgency of the situation, and beckoned Killian behind his desk to access the closed-circuit footage. They rewound at high speed, figures blurring by, until at last Killian's sharp eyes caught sight of a stomach-turningly familiar sight, one he couldn't forget in all the years that had passed. "Stop!"

The officer hit the freeze button, and there he was. No mistaking. The crocodile, tailored suit and slow limp, crossing the foyer at a stately pace and vanishing. The time stamp read 5:15:42 – literally mere minutes before Killian had arrived back with Miss Nolan. _I missed him by the slimmest of margins. And there's absolutely no telling where he's gone now._

How had the bastard even left Storybrooke, for that matter? Emma had been quite clear that this was an event so rare as to be entirely unprecedented. _He wasn't supposed to be able to! He was supposed to bloody stay!_ Yet as before, the wretched reptile had somehow slipped the noose, wriggled free another confounded time. The wise thing to do was to count his blessings that he'd avoided him and carry tidily on with his life, but Killian Jones, seeing Gold there, right there _in front of him_ after so long and so much rage and so much loneliness, was in no mood for the wise thing to do. His blood was up in a way it hadn't been in an age, and he most ardently desired to disembowel something or some _one._ Briefly, he wondered at the feasibility of finding those small-time thugs he'd chased off for Emma in the gas station. Surely nobody would notice or care if they happened to go missing and were never seen ag –

It wasn't the sound that snapped him out of his murderous reverie, but rather the lack of it. The sirens outside had finally stopped, rolling off into the night, and calmness and order were being restored, more or less. Once again, Killian reminded himself that even if the ambulance had been at Emma – _Miss Nolan's –_ dormitory, it was nothing to do with him, and he still had no desire to be tarred and feathered and frog-marched off campus in disgrace, living proof that the "hot young foreign professor" experiment ended badly every time. He wasn't even overly interested in her. He was older than her – how much so, she had no idea – and her accusation was correct. He _would_ , if he was successful, destroy everyone and everything she had ever known about herself, her home, her life. She didn't need that kind of cruelty, his cruelty. Didn't deserve it.

Killian shook his head and turned back to the officer, who was looking at him questioningly, clearly in search of further instructions. "Professor. . . what do you want me to do about this? I can issue a campus alert to be on the lookout for him if you think he's still here – did he take anything from your office? I can also be in contact with the city police department so they can mark him as a person of interest, or – "

Killian hesitated. He would be enraged if anyone else claimed the honor of taking the crocodile down, but he'd be a fool to spurn any advantage. He hadn't done so bloody well on his own these past years, and if there was any way he could kill Gold (or have him killed) with only minimum repercussions on his part, that was certainly something to be prized. While physical evidence of the crocodile's crime might be a bit thin on the ground here, Killian had confidence in his ability to improvise if need be. And besides, he'd almost forgotten how ragged and rotten vengeance wore him. He'd come here and started a new life, and having this old ghost rear its head again, casting a long and horrible shadow, potentially destroying everything he had come to care for, was like being plunged back into the nightmare all over again. He wanted it over. He wanted it to go away. He wanted to sleep a hundred years. He wished he'd never grown up.

"All right," he said at last. "Call the Boston Police Department. But you'll be wanting to tell them not just that he's a sneak and a thief. No, there's something else."

The officer, hand already on the phone, looked confused. "What?"

Killian smiled mirthlessly. "He's a murderer."

* * *

When the call had been placed, Killian headed out into the night. He didn't feel nearly as triumphant as he'd expected. Yet with any luck, Gold would slip up under questioning and inadvertently reveal enough dirt to make them start digging. Like any bully, he was utterly unused to being called out or challenged on his malarkey, and if they found out he was from a town that for all intents and purposes didn't exist, that should at least raise a few antennae. What would come of it. . . well, fuck it if he knew.

Killian started toward the parking lot, intending to go home. He'd wanted to set up shop in either the Back Bay or Beacon Hill, as the brownstone row houses, cobbled streets, and gaslamps of these historic Boston neighborhoods reminded him of London, but no doubt precisely for that reason, both were far beyond the financial capabilities of a first-year professor. He had thus been forced to relocate his real estate aspirations elsewhere. While he wasn't out on the street by any means, it was still a bit of a grotty step down, in his estimation. Still, it kept the rain off, and it was currently the soundest option. Try to get some sleep, and perhaps. . .

Once more, unwillingly, he glanced up the hill toward Walsh. It couldn't hurt just to look. Whatever the hell had happened with the queen earlier – he'd not been in any doubt about the malevolent looks she was giving the both of them. Even though he had already been almost entirely certain of what Storybrooke was, it was still an unpleasant shock to have confirmed. And the turnover. . . to speak of things that boded ill. He intended to take it home and subject it to a few very pointed tests, see if it was what he thought, and then if so, have a few more private words with law enforcement. Then they'd have to at least look into whether Regina Mills had –

The turnover.

Killian stopped in his tracks, seized by an awful suspicion. Oh Christ. All this time, he'd been under the impression that he'd clandestinely confiscated it from Emma and stashed it away for investigation, but he was suddenly, horrifying unable to remember if he had or not. The thought was enough to make him freeze in his tracks, kneel down, click his briefcase open, and madly ruffle through it, the papers and the rubbish and the rest – but no turnover. It wasn't there. And if he'd forgotten, if Emma had taken it all unsuspecting, thinking it was nothing more than a –

Bloody hell. _Bloody. Hell._

Killian remained motionless an instant longer. Then he flung himself to his feet, barely remembering to latch the case again, and broke into a full-on, head-down, arms-pumping sprint.

Moving at such speed, almost flattening a startled couple coming down the path toward him, he dodged and weaved up toward Walsh, cursing himself savagely for an idiot with every stride. He hurdled a hedge like an Olympic champion, though it snagged and tore his sport coat, and landed on the far side, racing toward the front doors of the building. There was a young woman standing just outside, a faintly familiar-looking one, hanging up her cell phone, and Killian approached, doing his damndest not to look as if it was a national emergency. "Excuse me, lass," he said, trying his best charming smile. "Would you be so kind as to swipe me in just a moment?" Boston College key cards didn't work after a certain hour, if you were someplace you weren't supposed to be. Such as, say, the bloody sophomore dorm.

She did a double take. "Professor Jones?"

"Aye," Killian said, confused. He didn't recognize her, didn't think she was a student in either of his classes – but she _did_ have that look. . . and. . .

Bugger it. He was in a fucking hurry. "If you would?" he repeated. "Won't be long, I just – "

"Hold on." She hit redial on her cell phone, her face pinched and fraught with anxiety. "Emma isn't picking up, she's not in the room, someone told me they took somebody away in an ambulance, and – "

 _"Emma?"_ An avalanche of freezing sludge broke off and roared down Killian's back. It wasn't, again, the wise thing to do, but he was too startled to dissemble. "Do you know Emma?"

The young woman looked at him queerly, and not a little suspiciously. "Of course I know her. She's my roommate. Why?"

As Killian scrambled for some shabby alibi, a third voice interrupted. "Wendy!" Another young woman rushed out the front door, looking just as panicked. "The people in the next room say that the paramedics were in our suite! I think it was Emma!"

For the God knew which time, Killian felt as if the world had tilted out under from him, crashed and sent spinning away. And not even due to the confirmation of what he'd been fearing, but that name. There were nine thousand bloody undergraduates enrolled at the school, that had to be good for at least a handful of Wendys. . . but she _had_ looked familiar and now he was certain almost beyond doubt that he knew why. She must be the granddaughter of – oh _God,_ if she caught wind of this whole mess and confronted her grandmother, and said grandmother discovered the role that Killian had played in all this, or rather that _Captain_ _Hook_ had –

_You can't turn back into him. Ever._

And he'd promised, but as usual when it came to Wendy Moira Angela Darling, he'd failed her.

He didn't think he'd said anything, but standing there with a gobsmacked look on his face must have been enough. Wendy – this would be Jane's daughter then – was frowning at him, only listening with half an ear to whatever her friend had just told her. "I'm sorry – ?" she said. "Do I know – ?"

"Not – not likely. I – I just – " Killian barely heard what he was saying. _Don't tell your grandmother, please, I'm begging you –_ but that was sure to go over as a lead balloon. Even more so than his previous mishaps. "I don't – believe so?"

"But Emma – what happened with Emma?" Wendy had the bit between her teeth, clearly smelled a mystery, and wasn't going to let go so fast. "First we hear she's arrested, then someone said they saw her come back, and now it sounds like she was taken away in an ambulance – have you. . .?" She took a step forward. "Alice, do you know anything about this?"

The other young woman – Alice, oh bloody hell, he knew her, she was in his literature class, it must have been her paper he'd just been marking, _Alice Carroll –_ shook her head, not taking her eyes off Killian. "Sounds fishy, but. . . we don't have time to look into this right now. If they took her to a hospital, it was probably Mass General, and I think we should – "

Doubtless she finished that sentence. Doubtless it was even important. But Killian never heard. Instead, doing nothing to diminish their suspicion, he was already running.

* * *

"Who the hell is Killian Jones?" It was the first question David had gotten in edgewise in the last ten minutes, and he was determined to have it answered. "I mean, I thought he was just a history professor and you're talking about him like he's Ted Bundy or something. Can you please _explain_ why he's supposedly gone all to this trouble to attempt to murder my daughter and – "

Gold held up a hand, dismissing him. To the attentively scribbling officers, he said, "As I have explained in great detail, I have absolutely no doubt that Professor Jones is the one behind the attempt on Miss Nolan's life. You'll want to consider that in your calculations."

"We will. We'll be looking into this, trust me." One of the officers removed his radio from his belt, then stepped out of the room. A tense few moments passed, but when he stepped back in, he had an odd look on his face. "Sir – you gave your name as Gold, didn't you? Robert Gold?"

"Yes," Gold said curtly. "Why?"

"It's just. . ." The police officer scratched his head, looking bewildered and rather embarrassed. "Sir, according to my colleagues downtown, there's a warrant for your arrest."

David's mouth fell open. He exchanged a wild look with his wife, who was staring just as blankly back at him. They took hands and turned to face Gold, determined to inquire as to just what he'd been hiding from them – was there another reason he hadn't left Storybrooke in so long? They had the feeling that they'd stepped directly onto a motherlode of quicksand, and with everything Gold had said about no longer being able to protect them if he left town – they couldn't help but wonder sickly if this was in some measure their fault. It was a parent's worst nightmare, and it was only getting worse. _"Why?"_ David demanded.

"Because," a low, lethal Irish voice said from the door. "He's a murderer."

The communal double-take the entire room performed was almost – almost – comical. They spun around and then beheld the man standing there, whom both David and Mary Margaret recognized from their brief introduction in the dining hall. He was disheveled, windblown, and staring down Gold, who was staring back, just as chalk-faced, hot-eyed, and completely transfixed. The silence that endured between them was depthless, almost alive in its fury. Then both of them turned to the police officers and barked in unison, "Arrest that man!"

The officers, pardonably even more dumbfounded by this point, exchanged looks, first at Jones, then Gold, then with each other. "Scuse. . . is this some kind of joke?"

"Not at all," Killian Jones snarled.

"I was wondering that myself," Robert Gold snapped.

"Holy Moses, both of you." David Nolan, for his part, had had it up to here with their shenanigans, especially thinking of his daughter unconscious in the intensive care unit after a very nearly successful poisoning, while this pair of lunatics argued over her body. He stepped forward angrily, displaying what his wife had often called his "Prince Charming" streak – his need to step in and valiantly save the day. "Can you both just calm down and explain what the hell is going on?" He shouldered between them; they were both starting to stalk in a circle, lions closing in on a wounded gazelle. "This is a _hospital!"_

Mary Margaret shot a look at the officers. "They're right. Arrest them."

"I don't think so, dearie!" Gold bellowed, making everybody jump again. "You'll recall the terms of our deal? If you don't want _me_ to – "

"Deal?" Jones cut in scathingly. "Oh, so you're patting their heads with one hand and picking their pockets with the other, is that it? That's low even for you, crocodile. Do you – "

"Do _you_ even know what I'm doing here? No, you don't, do you? Didn't know how I'm _protecting_ them?" Gold took a two-handed grip on his cane, as if its imminent use as a whoopass stick was shortly to be required. "Vastly though you do not deserve it, I'll make you a deal of your own. Walk out that door and never be seen in our lives again, in any shape or form, and I'll forget I ever saw you. I won't even do what I was planning – and believe you me, you don't want me to do what I was planning."

Jones laughed, raw and scraping. "I don't know about you, officers, but to me, that sounds a bloody lot like a threat. You _are_ going to pay attention to that, I trust?"

"Look." The officer who'd been questioning Gold earlier stepped forward. "I don't know what this is, if this is some kind of prank or private feud or what, but both of you jokers had better not be trying to get the force involved just to frame each other or set each other up or whatever the hell's going on here. In fact, I think both of you _could_ do with a little trip down to the – "

"Emma," Killian Jones interrupted. He shot a look at David and Mary Margaret. "Your daughter. She must be here. What happened to her? Is she all right?"

"No," David said coolly. "No, she's not."

He had an interesting opportunity then to examine the other man's face, the way he flinched, the open despair in the blue eyes, and be uncomfortably reminded of everything he had thought regarding not liking the way his daughter had been looking at her professor. For him to turn up here, moreover, and confront Gold – there was clearly a great deal that needed to be unearthed, and he fully intended to find out what it –

Gold himself, at that moment, grimaced. He took a step back, defusing exactly none of the tension of the gathering storm, and made a sharp motion to the Nolans. "As it happens," he remarked to the room at large. "Not to worry, we're leaving. You'll excuse us."

"What?" Mary Margaret hissed, as he limped closer. "We can't leave now! We don't know if Emma's going to be all right, we don't know why you and Professor Jones are going at it like – "

"As I was just saying." The look he turned on her was terrifying, cold and inexorable and pitiless as a glacier. "You'll recall the deal we made. The part about how we'd return to Storybrooke at once, no questions asked, if I said so? Well, I'm saying so."

"If you think we're leaving, you're out of your – "

"Which do you value more, dearie?" Gold breathed. "Your daughter's life, or everyone else in the town's? Because that's what the choice is going to come to, you know. How do I know? Because I can feel it. This is only beginning. Someone has just broken into my shop."


	12. Chapter 12

"No," Mary Margaret said, and clenched her fists.

Gold glanced over his shoulder with every simulacrum of his usual chilly, precise politeness, but the look in his eyes was savage. "I beg your pardon, dearie?"

"I said no." Mary Margaret stepped in front of her husband, who was trying to clutch her arm. "We're not leaving. I don't care about your shop. There is nothing more important to me in this life than my daughter, and if you think we're running away and abandoning her while she – "

"Funny choice of words there. _In this life._ Your daughter's fine, she's not dying. Yet. In fact, if you're at all interested in productively furthering her recovery, you'll be accompanying me." Gold's voice was very low, a soft and sinuous hiss. "Are you saying, Mrs. Nolan, that you're breaking our deal? Do you _really_ want to go down that road? I seem to recall there's that document in my shop, the one that prevented you from tragically losing your home in unfortunate financial circumstances. If any damage comes to the place, and it should disappear. . . well then, it would no longer be binding, would it?"

Mary Margaret went as white as snow. "How dare you."

"I'm not the one threatening to throw away a signed and sealed agreement, dearie. You and your lummox of a husband, now. . . think carefully about this. Think _very_ carefully."

Mary Margaret threw an imploring look at David, who appeared irresolute. He glanced agonizingly back down the hospital corridor, away toward the ICU where Emma still fought for life. Then, drawing his wife close, he murmured in her ear, "I can't be positive, but that turnover they showed us. . . doesn't it look an awful lot like the one Regina offered us once upon a time? And what with Gold said about protecting us. . ."

"You can't be _believing_ him!" Mary Margaret's expression turned aghast.

"I. . . I just think there's something back in Storybrooke that we need to look out for. Something dangerous. And us. . . the house. . . I just. . . I'm sorry, honey. I think we should."

_"What about Emma?"_

David sighed heavily. "The doctors said she's stable, at least. We'll have them call us immediately if anything changes. And. . .. and. . . Here."

With that, ignoring the shocked look from Mary Margaret and the black one from Gold, David turned and strode across the waiting room to Killian Jones. He took his work notepad and pen from his shirt pocket and scribbled a brief note, then handed it to the professor. "Here. Give this to Emma when she wakes up. Tell her we didn't leave her willingly. Tell her we love her."

"I'll be sure to do so." Jones' voice was soft as well, but it brimmed with depthless malice as he stared evilly at the pawnbroker. "Mate."

David jerked his head in acknowledgement, then turned away. The police still appeared stupefied, or else had decided that everybody involved was hopelessly cracked and it would thus be of no use to arrest them – though one of the officers did remind them that a civil citation for frivolously wasting the force's time would not be out of the question. Shaking their heads, they turned their attention to the lab tech and his poisoned pastry; at least there they had tangible evidence that an actual crime had been committed. To which, as the door closed behind Gold and the Nolans, Killian turned to them and said lightly, "You won't find her, you know."

"Scuse?" The sergeant glanced up wearily, clearly begging him to bugger off. "Find who?"

"The woman who gave Miss Nolan that." Killian gestured. "Name of Regina Mills. Mayor of Storybrooke, Maine."

"St – " The female officer glanced at him, as females tended to do regardless of whether or not they were sheriffs with shiny badges clipped to their belts. "Are you saying you know the suspect, Mr. . .?"

"Jones. Professor Jones, history and English at Boston College. Here's my card." Killian proffered it, as to prove that _he_ at least was not invisible, a faceless man from a rootless place. _Except I am._ "You'll never find Storybrooke on your own, officers. Not unless you hurry down right now and follow them. You'll find her there. Regina. She's hard to miss. And perhaps some evidence of other crimes as well."

"This is very serious, Professor. We don't have time to go haring off into Wonderland on wild goose chases. Are you sure that – "

"Yes," Killian said, with utter, frigid finality. "Perfectly."

The officer gave him a long, considered look, but glimpsed something in his face that made her frown and turn back to her colleagues. After a brief discussion and another radio conversation that he did his damndest to eavesdrop on without appearing to, it seemed that the decision was made. At a signal, the remaining officers holstered up and headed out.

Killian stood watching them go, feet feeling rooted to the floor. This was it. D-Day. Go, or stay. Pursue the whole tiresome lot of them back to Storybrooke, or remain behind and do. . . and do what? It certainly wasn't as if he'd be of appreciable use to the doctors, and he could undoubtedly tell the police a fair few intriguing bits of information in their hunt for an accused murderess. Have his chance to lay to rest, once and for all, the specter that stalked his past and imperiled his present, cast a dark and depthless shadow over any dream of his future. Against that, what was one unconscious girl in a hospital bed? A girl he didn't even care for?

He looked down again at David Nolan's hastily scribbled note. _I promised him._ But Killian Jones had promised so many things to so many men in his long life, the word began to lose its potency after a time. It was a debased currency he traded in, promises, and nor did he need to loiter about here like an anxious lover – the one impression he absolutely had to avoid projecting any more than he already had. It was done. Finished. He'd held up his end of the bargain.

But what if Wendy found out he'd gone after Gold? Again?

How long, how bloody long, did he have to drive the stake into his own heart?

Clutching the note so tightly in his fist that it hurt, Killian glanced down the hospital hallway one last time and made his choice.

* * *

Emma Ruth Nolan was burning.

Whenever she wasn't burning, she was falling. Sometimes it was both, a terrifying formless tumble into a never-ending void, as she screamed with voiceless desperation and clawed her fingers to shreds trying to beat down the darkness, but the only spark of light kept receding further and further away down an endless tunnel until it was only a flicker, and then devoured completely. No matter what she did, she kept falling. Down a rabbit hole, down a whirlwind, down a maelstrom. The pain raced down after her, trying to keep up, as she smoldered and sparked and shook and burned, as she kept looking for the source of the fire but could never find it. Down and down and down and down. Head over heels over head over heels, she plunged. She had always heard that if you hit the bottom in a falling dream, you died.

Panicking, she ripped at it, trying to slow her momentum. But it was useless; gravity gulped her up like a stone down a well. And in the darkness now, she began to see other things, other _scenes,_ from a life that did not belong to her. She saw that brief flash of _whatever_ vision – hallucination – had struck her when she'd kissed Killian – only this time she saw the bloodstained, wounded man reach the wardrobe and shove the baby inside it. Saw _herself,_ she was that baby, she was in a crib in some grim industrial children's home, a little red-haired boy was sadly walking away from her. . . with a family, a family she didn't know, but she was happy, so happy and then they gave her away. . . a broken childhood with more of the same, from home to home, school to school, place to place, a child that the state paid for until they didn't. . . suspensions for being dirty, for being late, for not doing homework, until she ran out into the street and didn't look back. . . crowbar, breaking into a yellow Bug just like her own, Neal popping up in the backseat and telling her she could have just asked him for the keys. . .

 _No!_ Emma tried to scream as the dream turned even more vivid, more demented and improbable. What was this – this wasn't _her_ , why were they doing this, living out of the back of the Bug and robbing convenience stores – where were her parents? Why weren't they helping her? Why weren't they here? Why had they left her – why hadn't they – no, _no –_

– watches, something to do with watches. Taking watches from a locker in a train station, doing it for Neal, waiting for him, a phone ringing but never answered, a police officer telling her to put her hands up – but that wasn't what had happened, that wasn't right, she'd been arrested for drugs but she hadn't done it, but she was still going to jail and someone had sent her the keys and there was a pregnancy test in her hand, there was –

– god no what was happening what was happening, just knowing she'd been abandoned they'd left her there all of them they weren't there, what was the matter with her, why was this still happening, she was writhing on a narrow cot in a prison infirmary, panting and gasping and groaning, she was in labor – then a baby screaming, a baby in her arms for just a moment and her lips brushing over the soft head, she wanted to hold him, she wanted to keep him, but she couldn't, she didn't know why only that they were taking him away and it felt like ripping her own heart out but she couldn't stop them –

falling still falling and gaining speed, this was it, she could see the bottom racing up at her, could see it coming and she didn't know how to stop, say her prayers, _tell my family I love them –_

but she had never had one –

And then there was no more falling. No more burning.

Only darkness.

* * *

She was dead. Or maybe she wasn't.

She was rising. Slowly, slowly, slowly. She felt scraped and charred and raw, beaten inside and out, as the shadows dancing on her eyelids cohered into sense, as consciousness returned in jagged chunks. She could hear sounds whooshing past, dim and distant as if they were underwater, and the steady, persistent beeping of a monitor. Her eyes were still closed, heavy and sticky, each breath aching in her chest ; there was some kind of tube threaded through her, measuring them out, that monitor keeping pitiless time. But she didn't understand. How she'd gotten here, what had happened, anything besides the utter mystery.

With the greatest effort known to man, Emma peeled her eyes open.

She was in a room. A hospital room, to be exact. Crowded with steel machines exuding an eerie green glow, charts posted up on sterile white walls, her body sprawled out like a broken toy, swaddled in gown and sheets and blankets. She tried to raise her right hand in front of her face, but couldn't. It was cuffed to the bed.

A queer, giddy terror took hold of her. She rattled it, trying to get it loose, but she was so weak that her struggles barely even registered. Her hand was emaciated, the bones standing out sharply beneath the parchment-pale skin, and when she held it up to the light of the monitors, she could almost see through it. It dropped to her side, shaking.

Emma reached out with her other hand, which at least was free, fumbling at the bedside tray. There was a cup of water on it which she promptly knocked over, soaking the scrap of paper that had been left next to it. Ink ran, turning the note into a soggy mess, and she made a face, cursing herself for her clumsiness. Her throat was as dry as a desert and she was desperate for a drink, for balm to smooth her cracked lips. How long had she been here?

There was nothing left in the cup by the time her feeble fingers caught hold of it. She moaned in frustration, trying to curse; her lips felt numb and thick and could barely shape around human words. She groped around for something that looked like a nurse-summoning button, and in the meantime, put another hopeful but doomed effort into loosening the handcuff. Why would they cuff her? Was it the watches? Where was Neal? What had _any_ of –

She finally found the button, and banged it with a vengeance.

A few minutes later, she heard rustling at the door, and a flustered night nurse hurried in – then stopped, clearly shocked. "Miss Nolan? Miss Nolan! You're awake!"

Emma frowned, trying to push herself upright with her one good arm, but it gave out and she crashed back down, presaging a flurry on the nurse's part to order her to lie still while she checked the vitals, the dosages, the life support – _life support?_ It was all too confusing, and she meekly lay still as further specialists flooded the room, all professing similar amazement to see her returned to the world of the living. They informed her that she was still extremely weak, that she shouldn't overexert herself, and hooked up various bags of fluids to the IV needle inserted in her right arm. She was still desperate for something to soothe her throat, but she couldn't speak with the tubes, couldn't give voice to the increasingly frantic confusion inside her.

She made desperate gestures, trying to communicate in sign language, but they kept telling her not to move. At last, when she started gagging, they unhooked the ventilator, then had to hold her hair as she threw up. It was wrenching, filthy, the worst she'd ever been sick in her life, but she felt marginally better when she was done. They gave her a cup of water to rinse out her mouth. She gargled and spat, then sank back into the hospital bed, trembling.

"What. . . happened?" She barely recognized her own voice. It sounded like a ghost's, barely louder than a whisper. "Why. . . here?"

"Miss Nolan, we just want you to take it slow. You've been very ill, sweetie, and we're very lucky to have you back." The nurse smiled, presumably meaning to be comforting. "Someone's gone right away to call your parents."

"My _parents?"_ At that, Emma wasn't so sure that she'd woken up after all. "Yeah. . . good luck with that."

The nurse frowned. "Honey?"

"I've. . . I'm an. . . orphan." As always, the word stuck in her throat. "I was abandoned at birth, I grew up in the foster system. I don't have parents. I think you might have switched charts or something." She fumbled at her hospital bracelet, and was furtherly unsettled to see that it too bore the wrong name. The hell was going on? It was like some cut-rate cable medical drama, mysterious patients and exotic illnesses and everything. "I – I'm not Emma Nolan."

The nurse frowned. "Sweetie, calm down. You've been in a coma. You're confused."

"I'm not confused!" Emma's heart was starting to pound. "I know who I am, all right? My birthday is in two weeks, I go to Boston College, I'm a student there. I don't remember how I got here, but my memory's fine. Really. I just. . . what happened to me? And. . . my baby, I want. . ." All she could remember was the sound of him screaming. The pain of him being taken away. How long had she been asleep, oh God? "I had a baby. What did – what did you do with him?"

The doctors exchanged glances. Finally one of them said in a measured tone, "Miss Nolan, this is going to be hard for you to accept, but – "

_"Don't call me that!"_

"Emma. Here's what's going on. You've been in a coma for almost two days after ingesting some kind of rare toxin. You were bleeding heavily and unconscious when you were brought in. There. . . there is a possibility that you were in fact in the very earliest stages of pregnancy, to judge from the amount and composition of your bleeding, but it was _so_ early that it's frankly impossible to tell. If so, you miscarried. There is no baby. I'm sorry."

Emma stared at him. Her mouth opened and shut, shaping itself around useless denials, hitting her harder than she'd ever believed possible. She almost couldn't breathe for that feeling of overwhelming grief, of losing a piece of her heart. . . her _baby,_ how could he not be real? She had felt every labor pain, every drop of sweat. . . that downy-soft newborn hair on his skull. . . the weight of him in her arms, a little bundle of blankets with a red face. . . _gone. Gone. Gone._

"I'm very sorry," the doctor added again, awkwardly. "We can send in the hospital chaplain to talk with you if you'd like, but it would be better for you to sleep. You need to get your – "

"Why am I chained?" Emma burst out desperately, rattling the handcuff again. "Why am I chained up? If it's about the watches, I didn't do it. I only took them from the train station, Neal actually stole them, it was Neal, he called in a tip and set me up – "

"Watches?" More looks of utter bafflement. "Excuse me, Miss – Emma, what watches?"

Oh God. Oh God, what was happening to her? Why had she woken into a world where nothing was real, where all her memories were tilted and shattered like dishes on the floor? "The watches," she repeated, as if the force of her own belief could convince them. "They were worth twenty thousand dollars, Neal said. I shouldn't have done it, but I've been alone my whole life and I just wanted a home, I wanted a place with him, I wanted to stay with him. Please."

"Honey. We're going to give you some more medicine now. You need to sleep. Things will be better when you wake up."

"No – no, don't!" Emma's voice rose on a shriek as someone who looked hair-raisingly like Nurse Ratched stepped in with a syringe. "No! No, please, just listen to me! I'm not lying, I swear! Did Neal run off? He can tell you about the watches, he'll tell you I'm not making it up! I'll take a polygraph, or – or whatever you want – no, stop! Stop!" She rolled frantically from side to side, but with the handcuff and her own weakness, there wasn't much place to go, and two burly young male residents stepped forward to hold her down. "I'm not Emma Nolan! You're making a mistake, I'm not her! Stop!"

Too late. The nurse injected the contents of the syringe into her IV line, and almost at once, Emma felt the heavy, soporific effects of a sedative spreading through her body. She sobbed in panic, but it was already closing around her heart, her chest, easing its jerks, smoothing all out into drugged tranquility, into silence and darkness. "No," she mumbled, even as the wings of the shadow were closing around her, enfolding her to its breast. "No. No, I'm not. My name's Emma. Not Emma Nolan. Emma. Emma _Swan."_

* * *

Not too terribly surprisingly, Mr. Gold floored it and then some for every one of the two-hundred-odd miles from Boston to Storybrooke. The old black Cadillac swayed and juddered in protest at being asked to maintain a minimum speed of eighty miles an hour, but neither its driver nor its passengers attempted to effect a reduction. They just sat tight, lips pressed into thin white lines, as they roared up the interstate as if the police were after them (which, so far as David and Mary Margaret knew, they might well be). As a result of Gold's audition for NASCAR, what was normally a four-hour drive was sliced to under half. It was about one AM when they blew past the green _Welcome to Storybrooke_ sign and down the road onto Main Street, never stopping or even slowing until they turned into the alley next to his shop and burned to a halt inches from the 'Reserved Parking' sign. Gold jerked up the parking brake with a screech, then threw the car door open into the night, cane brandished like an assault rifle.

Holding hands tightly and wishing for some weapon of their own, the Nolans climbed out after him, every nerve on edge. They trailed a few paces behind the pawnbroker as he stumped vengefully toward the dark bulwark of the shop, tried the door, and cursed softly when it proved to be unlocked. He shoved it open with an off-key jangle of the bell and vanished inside.

"David," Mary Margaret whispered. "Do we _have_ to – ?"

Her husband squeezed her hand. "Come on."

Side by side, they edged into the darkness, where it was possible to hear Gold throwing things in every direction as he rummaged madly across the counter. Even a cursory inspection was enough to see that the rose in its glass case was missing, as well as the chipped cup, and Gold's inspection was getting ever more frantic as he searched for it. He looked, in fact, more unraveled than they'd ever seen, more desperate, almost as if he was going to –

"Well, well, well. It took you long enough."

David and Mary Margaret both wheeled around, recognizing the voice, but still – for one blissful second longer – unable to connect it to sense. Still thinking that they were safe, that their desperate flight to Boston hadn't had the promised consequences after all. Then a light went on in the back of the shop, revealing Regina Mills in the flesh, perfectly groomed as always despite the ungodly hour, and beside her Sheriff Graham Humbert. He was sweating profusely, face as pale as bad fish, and seemed unable to meet their eyes.

"You." Gold straightened up. " _You."_

"Me." Regina gave a sleek little shrug. "Almost twenty years, Gold, and you lose it now? It's so terribly unlike you, I almost don't want to do this. Oh wait. Never mind. I do."

Not waiting to hear another word, David turned and lunged for the door.

In one swift motion, the sheriff drew his service weapon and pointed it at the other man. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Nolan. Not another step."

"Are you – " David turned back, aghast. "Are you out of your mind, Humbert? You helped us, you said that – "

"I wasn't well. As Regina – Mayor Mills – observed." Graham's finger tightened on the trigger; if that was so, he looked even less well now. "Now _please_ don't move, or I'll have to do this."

Mary Margaret let out a whimper of despair, staring back and forth between Gold, Regina, and Graham holding her husband at gunpoint. "What's – how dare you think that you can – "

"A deal's a deal, dearie. And this one was particularly ghastly to break in regards to its consequences, as I warned you and _warned_ you." Gold's attention, however, was only half on her. His serpent's stare was fixed on Regina. "Give it back."

She smirked. "No."

"Give it back, _please."_

"That doesn't work anymore, you know." Her smile had widened; she looked positively euphoric. "You don't know how many times I've imagined this day, and now it's even sweeter than I thought. You want this back? Then you're going to do what I say."

With that, Regina removed her hand from behind her back, revealing the chipped porcelain teacup cradled firmly between her fingers. "Such a fragile thing, isn't it? Eggshell china. Even squeezing too hard might shatter it."

"No!" Sweat was standing out on Gold's forehead. "No, don't!"

Regina laughed out loud. "Oh, how I've longed for the day to see you squirming at my feet. Well, _Rumplestiltskin_. This is only the start. The parchment. Now."

Even though he was still squarely on the business end of Graham's gun, David managed to shoot an aghast look at Gold. " _The hell is she talking abou –_ "

Gold didn't answer. Every inch of him strung up and vibrating with fury, he went back to the safe behind the counter, spun the combination, and opened it. He removed an unremarkable, folded parchment, then held it up to face Regina. "This what you're after, dearie?"

"Yes," the mayor breathed. "Yes, that's it. Well, then. Twenty years too late is still better than never. You're going to burn that, and you're going to restore the curse to how it was supposed to be when I cast it. Our deal's over, Gold. You broke it. And when I finish the job of getting rid of Emma, it's never going to be broken. _Ever._ You know what this means? It means you _lost._ "

"If you think I'm letting you hurt my daughter – " Mary Margaret screamed –

Regina paid her no attention, though Graham briefly moved as if to point his pistol at her instead. Everyone's attention was transfixed on Gold, who still had the parchment in his hand. He hadn't moved to do anything. He barely even seemed to be breathing.

"Now, Rumple," Regina said, all poisonous sweetness. "Or else – " She tightened her fingers, and everyone heard the fragile porcelain of the cup creak in protest.

"No," Gold said, barely audible. _"No."_

"Your choice. Burn it, or you lose your last remnant of Belle forever."

 _Belle?_ The Nolans stared at each other dumbly. David was clearly trying to come up with a plan on the fly, but all such expressions of it were blunted by the continued presence of Graham and the gun. But Gold wasn't going to – he wasn't –

Face still utterly expressionless, the pawnbroker placed the parchment in a bowl. Then he took out a book of matches, struck it with a stink of sulfur, and put it in.

At once, the old dry brown paper caught and flared up with livid blue light. Flames leapt up, devouring it, crinkling the edges – the word written on it over and over, in some strange ink, seemed only to be one word, one name. _Emma._ Repeated until there was no more space on the page, until there was no more –

Mary Margaret went slack, her head drooping, as she started to sway. She breathed in the smoke, the deep purplish-green smoke, wondering where she had seen it before. David was likewise transfixed, eyes closing, as tendrils coiled out from the burning paper and engulfed them both. It was like falling, deeper and deeper into a soft suffocating shroud, until thought and name and memory vanished. Until it was only a soft dreaminess, floating.

Out of it, she heard a voice speaking. "What's your name?"

"Mary Margaret," she mumbled, wondering why. Silly question.

"Do you know him?"

Looking across the way, she glimpsed a faintly familiar-looking man – but she couldn't place him, and it fled further with every moment. She shook her head, puzzled. "No.

"Do you have any children?"

She'd always wanted them, but she had never been so lucky. She wasn't even married. "No."

"Does the name Emma mean anything to you?"

A pretty name, but. . . _"No."_

And when she opened her eyes in her bedroom in her spinster studio apartment, the alarm clock shrieking at her to get up and get going for another day at school, Mary Margaret Blanchard reminded herself not to eat turkey sandwiches before going to sleep. Reminded herself that whatever weird dream that had been, it was already done, over with. Thank God.

And when he opened his eyes in the master bedroom of the old Victorian, David Nolan rolled over to see his wife Kathryn sleeping soundly beside him, like always. Wondered why he'd had that dream of another wife, another child. Strange. Too much TV. Or something.

Their faces were still in his head, but fading.

It had been awfully real, but it was just a dream. It was over now.

Just a dream. He'd been sleeping. That was all.

Wake up, David.

Wake up.

* * *

Killian Jones arrived on what should be, by his extremely accurate calculations, the town line of Storybrooke, Maine, at 1:46 AM. But it was only to find a stretch of barren, empty road, no town at all, and the squadron of police officers he'd sent ahead parked in their cruisers, staring at it perplexedly. On seeing him pull up in his black Audi, one of them flagged him, breath steaming in the chill predawn. "Professor Jones? What are you _doing_ here?"

"Had a. . . personal interest in coming along." His heart was starting to pound. "It was here. I swear it was here. This is the bloody place! Keep driving, it was right here! I got in last time, I don't know why it's gone invisible again!"

They all looked at him queerly. "You do know that there's no town by the name of Storybrooke in Maine, don't you?"

"Of course I know that! That's why I'm telling you that it's really here! You have to catch her – both of them, Mayor Mills and Gold. They're murderers the both of them, and Regina was the one responsible for poisoning – just go! God damn you, go!"

The officers exchanged looks, then as one, shook their heads. "Look. We get this has been stressful for you, sir. But we _really_ don't have time for this kind of stuff. There are legitimate things we need to deal with. Not this. . . let me be honest, this bullcrap."

"Is _that_ what you think?!" His temper flared, his fingers screaming to close around his sword – but it was back in Gold's house, just a few short miles away, and now as inaccessible to him as if it was on the moon. "All this time, I've been trying to tell you where to bloody find the bloody woman who poisoned Miss Nolan, and now you think I'm – "

"All right, sir. That's enough. You calm down right now, or you're riding back in the cruiser."

Killian laughed aloud, laughed in their faces. Harsh and furious and sharp as breaking glass. Nonetheless, he whirled on his heel, marched back to his car, and threw himself behind the wheel, almost blind with rage. _You foolish fucking bastard. Did you think you'd ever win? Did you think you'd ever get one up on the crocodile? Did you think you'd ever be happy here?_

He had. Oh God, he had. Hoped for it. Struggled for it. Like a bloody madman, which was now what he had become. Couldn't go back. Everything ruined. Had to get out before they found him. It had been so real, for a brief and breathtaking moment, but it was only just a nightmare.

Wake up, Killian.

Wake up.


	13. Chapter 13

Emma spent the next several days bedridden in the hospital, besieged by a bewildering array of tests, diagnostics, medications, examinations, specialists, and shrinks. She lay as inert as a crash-test dummy throughout, letting them do whatever they wanted and going away inside her head. Give them the dead flesh. Let them call her by the wrong name; it was easier than trying to persuade them that it wasn't her, it wasn't. _Emma Swan. I'm Emma Swan._

The nights were the worst. That was when she would lie dozing, unable to sleep, chased through dark and shadowed halls of memory. She still couldn't quite accept that there was no baby, never knowing how much she wanted it until it was gone. She'd always loudly scoffed at the idea of impressionable teenage girls getting pregnant on purpose so they'd have someone who loved them, until she realized that she felt much the same. They had sent a grief counselor to talk with her about the loss, but Emma clammed up, completely unwilling to reveal anything of herself to a perfect stranger. She only said something to make the counselor go away; she couldn't stand the cloying well-meaningness. She hated the idea that talking about it would make it better. She just lay inside her armor, suffering silently.

Once or twice, she tried to tell herself that it was for the best. How the hell would she have raised a baby in a dorm room? She'd have to drop out of school, get WIC or some crappy minimum-wage job, and that was even assuming that she didn't get charged and imprisoned for whatever it was she'd done wrong. _She_ knew it was because of smuggling twenty thousand in stolen watches from the train station, but according to everyone else, it was a pot trafficking conviction. It was like living in a funhouse-mirror version of reality, where everything she thought or imagined was suspect, where she didn't know whether to trust her intuition or the insistence of others, and the majority vote was solidly against her. She was at their mercy, powerless.

When they had finally ascertained that she wasn't in present danger of dying, they brought in the DA, Spencer King, to enfilade her with more questions. Emma remembered him only somewhat from before her coma, and what little she did remember was bad. It got no better. He offered cursory condolences on her condition, then wasted no time in reminding her that he was still empowered by the State of Massachusetts to mount legal proceedings against her. They immediately ran into trouble when she mentioned the watches, and had no recollection whatsoever of the marijuana.

The consequence of this, however, was that her appointed public defender – a young UMass law grad named Jacqueline or Jack, who hid the soul of a ruthless mercenary behind beguiling blue eyes – insisted that Emma was plainly not in her right mind, and that pressing ahead with the trial now could only be grossly exploitative and profiteering off a vulnerable and unwell young woman. (Heaven forbid, everyone present was given to understand, that the American criminal justice system should ever be exploitative or profiteering.) Going toe to toe with King, Jack asserted furthermore that she was far from certain that her client was even responsible for the crime. It made no sense. A good all-American girl from an all-American upbringing suddenly goes banzai and starts hauling narcs, when her deadbeat boyfriend wasn't even enrolled at the prestigious college he claimed to attend? When all the other names they'd turned up in regards to this case were connected to Mr. Cassidy, not Miss Nolan? When Miss Nolan had just been poisoned and put in the hospital in her present confused state, which certainly bore no resemblance at all to the sort of cover-up stunt a desperate drug dealer might just try to pull to stop her from talking and revealing the frame job? Had Messr. King taken _that_ into account? Well? Had he?

Emma was grateful for Jack's vigorous exhortations on her behalf, particularly when King enacted a tactical withdrawal out of sheer frustration and Jack announced her intention to stab him with her Manolo Blahnik if he ever resurfaced, but she couldn't think how to tell the attorney that she, like everyone else, was completely and horribly mistaken. What was this BS about "all-American girl, all-American home?" Were they fucking making fun of her? King clearly hadn't made a long and lucrative career of throwing hapless misfits in the clank by being stupid. He'd do some digging and find out who she really was. That she'd scraped and labored and starved to finish high school, and must have been accepted into BC only due to some kind of Catholic charity rule. About the petty theft, the property vandalization, the removals and re-placements in a demented merry-go-round of foster homes, and conclude that yes, she looked like exactly the sort of person to do this. Then they'd expel her from college, if they hadn't already, and her one faint flickering hope of making anything of her life would go out.

Jack, however, was not one to be daunted by trivialities. "Don't worry, hon," she said confidently as she perched on Emma's hospital bed, her freesia perfume mingling with the harsh scent of chemicals and sterile sheets. "I bet we can make this disappear without even going to trial. Spencer doesn't have a leg to stand on. His shtick is all about scaring people, and if he can't scare me – " she tipped Emma a confidential, girl-to-girl wink – "he's toast. Kaput. Forked. Finito. I can't wait to see the look on the son-of-a-bitch's face when I finally take him down."

Emma blinked. "Okay," she said uncertainly. "Jack. . . Ms. Antonsson. . . I mean, you've been very kind, but. . ."

"Nothing kind about it, hon. This is just my job." Jack whipped out a makeup compact and touched up her lipstick. "By the way, the hospital has been trying to contact your parents, but they haven't been able to reach them since they went back to Maine. Do you have another number we could try? Work line, old cell phone, friend of the family?"

Emma flinched. Of all the painful reminders that came with her mistaken identity, this one was the worst _._ "Ms. Antonsson. . . I know what they've told you. That I'm confused and making up lies and whatever, but I'm not. I don't know how this happened, but I've been mixed up with a girl named Emma Nolan, and everybody thinks I'm her. I'm sure her parents are very worried about her, but I don't know how to reach them. My name is Emma Swan, and I grew up in the foster care system. I don't _have_ parents. Maybe a snafu in the hospital intake processing?"

Jack listened with a polite, unrevealing smile. "If you think that," she said, in a voice which clearly suggested she didn't. "Okay, how about you do this. Can you get your wallet over there – oh no, you're not supposed to be out of bed right now, let me." She clicked across the linoleum floor in her three-inch heels, then back. "Open it, take out your driver's license."

Emma cast her a dubious look, but did so. She weaseled it out of its plastic sleeve, then held it up. Her voice was small with disbelief as she read off the name – _Emma Ruth Nolan –_ and the address. _228 Applewood Dr., Storybrooke, Maine 04916._

"There." Jack smiled. "I know it's bewildering right now, but – "

"No!" Emma interrupted. "No, you don't understand! I don't know who's behind this, but I think can be trusted to know who I am! Storybrooke's not even a real _place!_ Google it, you'll see. If what you're talking about is true, if Emma Nolan _is_ in some kind of trouble for smuggling pot, people probably have an interest in fobbing it off on me instead! What do I have to do? What do I have to show you – I promise, I – "

"You're not well." Jack's smile remained, but her eyes had become hard and resolute. "I'm sorry, Miss Nolan, but I'm not a psychologist. I can only tell you my laywoman's opinion that you just need to calm down and face the fact that you – "

"No. No, please don't call the nurse." Emma's hand fumbled to catch the attorney's as it crept toward the button. "They'll just sedate me again, and I – "

"Think of it this way," Jack said practically. "Let's apply Occam's Razor. Is it more likely that every single person you encounter is consistently lying to you, that every piece of identification you have with your name on it is wrong, that the hospital and the state legal system have made a blunder of epic proportions, and that everything we know and remember about you and your life is altered, mistaken, or maliciously misrepresented? Or is it more likely that the problem. . . not to be crass, but that the problem is you?"

Emma stared down at her hands. _The problem is you._ How often had she heard those words during her life? From the matron in the children's home, to her second or third or fourth – or second _and_ third _and_ fourth – foster mother, to countless exasperated principals, to sneering classmates, to even the fortunate few who'd tried so valiantly to be her friend. One by one, they'd all drifted away – whether it was when she wouldn't be their adopted "poor project kid," or she wouldn't go to Vacation Bible School with them, or listen to their tragic teenage problems, or even give a flying fuck. She _wanted_ to, she wanted to be there for them, but no one had ever been there for her and she was entitled to hold onto a scrap of her pride at least. Or so she had always told herself. Considering where it had ended her up, it looked like just as much a fucking shit of a life philosophy as the rest of it.

The bed began to blur as she continued to stare at it. A hot tear rolled down her cheek.

"I'm sorry." Jack patted her hand, then gathered her papers back into her briefcase and clicked it shut. "All right, Emma. See you soon."

"See you," Emma mumbled, not looking up. She heard the door shut, shot a glance at the clock, judged that she had thirty or forty minutes before the nurse returned; since she was out of the woods, her checkups were now every three hours or so instead of one. As much as the hospital was no refuge, at least she could be certain of where she was sleeping tonight.

Emma sniffed, then brutally palmed her tears away, furious with herself. But the wounds were too fresh, too deep, and her grand plan of emotionally deep-freezing herself was not yet complete. She sniffed again, shoulders wrenching, and put a hand to her mouth in a frantic and futile attempt to stifle a small, forlorn, utterly devastated wail. Then she turned on her side, pulled the covers over her head, and silently cried herself to sleep.

* * *

The rest of the week passed on the same rollercoaster of hell and humdrum. Emma's recovery – physically, at least – was surpassing all her doctors' expectations, but mentally, to their lights, she remained simply not there. Her short-term memory, faculties of reason, critical thinking, and general sanity were perfectly intact, but her long-term memory had been completely altered, replaced with another life – a delicate and mysterious neuronal misfire of unexplained proportions, like the man who mistook his wife for a hat. There was of course a case literature on people waking up from traumatic brain injuries with completely new skills or personalities, but all the scans and imaging they took revealed absolutely no sites of damage, nothing but what a healthy, active, intelligent, non-smoking, social-drinking young woman's brain should look like. To them, she had emerged from her coma with a consistent, lucid, logical, extensive memory of being a different person altogether, transplanted cleanly into the body of the patient that they had known as Emma Ruth Nolan.

Some of the higher-ups wanted her transferred to the state psychiatric ward for further tests and observation, but this prospect terrified Emma, and she set to work straightaway on Jack. In turn, Jack blistered the hospital brass for being as willing to play politics with this unwell young woman's life as was the legal system, and Jack, after all, was no foe to sneeze at. Thus it was on the rainy Friday afternoon, the attorney marched into Emma's room without so much as a knock, dropped a department-store bag on the bed, and said, "Get dressed, honey. We're leaving."

Emma glanced up with a start. As her physical condition had almost entirely normalized, she was no longer required to be on an IV drip 24/7, and she was sick of walking-corpse chic. For once, she didn't question her good fortune, but eagerly dove into the bag, pulling out a set of fashionable new clothes. She shucked off the flimsy paper gown and changed on the spot, shrugging the black wrap blouse over her shoulders and pulling up the soft fawn-colored leggings, the belt and necklace and boots and scarf. Jack lent her the use of her makeup compact, and as she peered into the tiny mirror and carefully applied her eyeshadow, Emma felt human again for the first time in eons. "Where am I going? With you?"

"With me?" Jack snorted. "Hell, no. The studio apartment's barely big enough for me, James, and his godawful little schnauzer. Three would _definitely_ be a crowd."

"James?"

"My boyfriend. We both work for the state justice system, it was where we met. Only he busts the perps into jail – he's a marshal – and I try to bust them out. Keeps us on our toes. What?"

"Nothing," Emma mumbled, but she'd suddenly remembered that indeed, the officer who arrested her had been named James, James George to be exact. It meant nothing, but it was a funny little coincidence, a piece of symmetry that made her oddly more hopeful of discovering more patterns in this ridiculous distortion she was still forced to operate under. She finished dressing, and trailed after Jack down the hall to the nurse's station.

The discharge process, naturally, took for-fucking-ever. The doctors, if they'd had their way, would have kept her a few more days at least, and there was haggling about the bill since she didn't have health insurance. Or rather, she did, but they'd run the address on the statement through the computer, and turned up no matches. 228 Applewood Dr., Storybrooke, Maine, was – so far as the great informational apparatus of the creaking healthcare bureaucracy was concerned – a completely fabricated place.

"Ha," Emma muttered, feeling grimly vindicated. "I _told_ you."

Jack herself looked startled, but took charge of the situation as usual, managing to cozen them into enrolling Emma in a state assistance program – this was Massachusetts, after all, they did healthcare coverage like old pros. Once the vexing financial knot had been slashed, Jack had a nice snack on the cubicle rat who tried one last-ditch obscure legal tactic. Then she shepherded Emma into the obligatory wheelchair and, all the papers signed and witnessed, pushed her out beneath the portico, into the drizzling, frigid October evening.

Emma shivered, clutching her black peacoat tightly – someone had dropped it off at the hospital. She couldn't help herself from throwing a wistful glance at Jack as the lawyer helped her into the front seat of her Volvo; despite everything she said about it being just her job, Emma sensed a genuine proprietary interest. It seemed greedy, since she'd never even had a mother, but she could almost imagine Jack as a firm but caring aunt. Family.

Then she caught herself. _The hell do you know about family, anyway?_ She was mentally sick, physically fragile, potentially expelled, essentially homeless, and Jack was the only human in the world who currently gave any sort of damn about her. No wonder Emma was already desperate not to be separated from her. But the language of abandonment was written so deeply into her psyche that she knew it wasn't a matter of if, but when. It was hard to tell if Jack actually had her best interests at heart, or just the prospect of taking down Spencer, and she reminded herself not to rely on the older woman for anything beyond the bare necessities.

Emma stared out the window as they inched through downtown Boston, city lights blearing the greyness and the Prudential Tower buried in low, heavy mist. "So. . . where _are_ you taking me, then?" A women's shelter, probably. Maybe a Motel 6.

"Home." Jack smiled thinly. "I had a little talk with the dean of students. You're going to be allowed back into BC on a provisional basis – you're on academic and legal probation. I explained your situation, and they agreed that it would be premature to kick you out completely, but as I said, there are strings attached. You have to maintain at least a 3.0 GPA, and if your pending charges result in conviction, you will be expelled."

She must have seen the look on Emma's face, because she laughed, abruptly changing lanes and flooring it to get around a slow-moving U-Haul trailer. "Honey, I'm your lawyer. You're not getting convicted. Fact is, you could actually walk away from this with a pretty nice settlement, if you bring a countersuit for defamation of character and attempted murder. Get someone put away for a long time, you know what I'm saying? Or – "

"No," Emma interrupted. "No, I don't want Neal to go to jail, I don't want them to hurt him. I just want to know why."

"But you do want money," Jack said shrewdly. "Your kingdom is awfully broke right now, princess. There are the hospital bills, court costs, school fees, rehab, whatever. If you had a nest egg, some security, you won't have to worry while we look for your parents and – "

Emma raised a hand. "Please," she whispered. "Can we not talk about my parents?"

Jack shrugged, but complied. Wonder of wonders, they finally found a moving lane of traffic, and in ten or fifteen minutes more, they were pulling into the BC campus and Walsh; Emma had never been so glad to see a dormitory building in her life. The rain was still coming down, beading in her hair, as she collected the small rucksack of personal effects from the hospital and got out of the car. _I'd better hope I don't catch pneumonia and go straight back in._

"Need help?" Jack called through the open window, casually flipping the bird to the SUV that had just roared up behind her and honked. "Piss off, you fucking idiot, I've got my flashers on."

"No. I – I think I have it." Yeah, right. What a lie. What a hollow, contemptible, horrendous lie. But Emma had gotten good at telling adults the things they expected to hear, and she mustered up a smile. "We'll be in touch soon, I guess?"

"Yes. Very. Think about what I've been telling you, hon. The lawsuit and all that."

"I will," Emma lied. "Okay. Thanks for everything. Really."

As Jack pulled away, the SUV rolling up in a huff to claim her vacated space, Emma stood watching her go, heart pounding. She was wracked by a sudden, crippling spasm of anxiety, almost strong enough to drive her to her knees. It felt as if she was falling, the ground coming out from under her while a giant fist strangled her lungs, breathing hard and short through her nose. Everyone, everyone and anyone she met from now on was going to do this, was going to leave, was going to hang her out to dry. She had to suppress an insane urge to sprint down the drive after the car. She felt cold and shaky, about to be sick.

At last, Emma swallowed heavily and turned away. Walked, much more calmly than she felt, to the door. With trembling thin fingers, she pulled out the college ID card with the wrong name, from the wallet with the driver's license with the wrong name and the imaginary address, swiped it through the reader, and went inside.

* * *

Since she'd returned on Friday night, theoretically she had the entire weekend to manage the re-entry shock. It did not quite work out that way.

Her roommates, with the best of intentions, had thrown a "Welcome Home Emma" party in the suite, and everybody was there – Wendy and her latest broody handsome literature major, Alice and Jefferson, Irene, and the rest of their friends. In deference to Emma's continued invalid state, they hadn't planned anything too vigorous and kept the music down to shouting-conversation level, but her head was spinning nauseously after the first beer. Worse, while she knew them, they didn't know her – or rather they all knew Emma Nolan, whoever that girl was, and kept burbling happily about how worried they'd been and how glad they were to have her back. It was her birthday next week! Did she have any big ideas?

Emma only sat mute, unable to answer them. While it _was_ comforting that she'd probably have a place to go if she did get kicked out, their conversation washed over her head like a tidal wave, sweeping her helplessly along in the undertow. They all wanted to utter various slanders on Neal's name to her, but she didn't want to hear them. Oh God, where was he? Was he all right? Why would he do this to her, _why?_ She'd loved him, _trusted_ him. Why? She just couldn't wrap her head around it. Why had she been so stupid? What should she have done differently? What should she have known, or guessed? What? What? _What?_

She had no stomach for frivolity. As gracefully as she could, Emma excused herself from her own party and crept into her room. Crept into bed, listening to the silence, feeling again the baby in her arms, the unlived child, the gaping hole in her heart. Lay on her back, staring into the darkness, until the darkness finally took her home.

She slept badly, both that night and Sunday, and was shocked awake on Monday by the strident screech of her phone alarm, summoning her back to the world of the living. Her eyes were gritty, her wits were wandering, and she had to look at her notebook to remember what even damn class she had. Oh, right. History. Eighteenth-Century Europe I: 1700-1750.

Wait. Something. Something was familiar about that, as was the professor's name. Well, obviously, if she'd been taking his class all semester. But Emma had a nagging feeling that it was something else, though she couldn't possibly have said what. Something that mattered to Emma Nolan, perhaps. Nothing that mattered to her.

Yet when she stepped into the classroom, and every single pair of eyes swiveled as if on a beanstalk to stare at her, she didn't recognize the bespectacled, sweater-clad garden gnome at the front of the room. He introduced himself as Neville Lewis, faculty adjunct, and announced that due to regrettable and unforeseen personal circumstances, Professor Jones would be absent for the remainder of the year. He would be taking the course over, hoped they'd work with him to ensure a smooth transition, and did his manful best to ignore the gasp of heartbroken desolation that echoed from every single female throat. At that, Emma rolled her eyes; apparently Killian Jones had been one of _those_ professors. But there was still something niggling at her, edging her heart cold, an undeniable sense that somewhere, somehow, she had forgotten.

Her sense of dislocation only increased during the week. She felt like she was sleepwalking, shuffling through a setpiece, the prototypical melancholy player while the stage of the world rushed on around her. She'd stopped trying to tell people that she wasn't Emma Nolan, as it was too hard to explain otherwise, but there was only so much comprehension she could feign and so many smiles she could fake before she felt like crawling into a corner and screaming her lungs out. After class, she returned straightaway to her room with a wild expression, and steadfastly refused Wendy and Alice's constant attempts to nurse her. She forgot to eat unless they made her. She had a brief phone conversation with Jack and then a nervous breakdown over the idea of midterms. She'd somehow managed to pull a C on that math exam she'd thought she completely flunked, but more and more, she simply couldn't stand the magnitude of her disconnection, the wrenching, rotten intensity of her grief. _Sound and fury, signifying nothing._

Her twentieth birthday, October 22, arrived with minimal fanfare. Wendy and Alice did their damndest to coax her to dress up and go downtown for a night out, but absolutely nothing could budge Emma. In the ensuing argument, she finally shouted that she was sick and tired of the whole charade, of pretending that she was someone she wasn't, and that whatever girl they thought they'd known before was gone forever. She had been forced by the weight of evidence to at least consider that she'd somehow been known by another name, imagined herself in another life before the coma, but she had no idea what and she had no idea how. There were no answers, or even partial answers. Only a shifting, soulless, endless, empty fog.

Afterward, as she lay in bed fuming and alone, Emma could hear the two of them conversing in low, worried whispers outside the door. Plainly they were going to stage some kind of intervention. Maybe even try to drag her back to the hospital. Well, she'd resist tooth and nail if they did. Nothing on earth was making her go.

That night, she dreamed about a faceless man, a man in black, a man with blue eyes that shone like stars in the gathering darkness. She woke with a gasp just before dawn, reaching for him, not knowing if it was in fear or in wanting. But it was already fading, and when she slept again, she remembered nothing when she woke.

* * *

The next morning was a flawless late-fall day, the campus clean-washed and brilliant in its red-gold mantle of leaves. Emma inhaled a deep breath as she stood on the steps outside Gasson Hall, trying to clear her muddled, murky, unhappy head. Across the way, she could see the grey oblong of Stokes, and yet again, some misty filament of memory tugged at her. It was probably just some revenant or remainder, but she had the strong urge to go in. Some old instinct wanted her to follow it. To what, she couldn't possibly say, but it was better than standing here and wondering if she should take up smoking so at least she'd have an excuse to skulk around the bike racks. She swung her backpack onto her shoulder and headed off.

Emma took the stairs to the third floor, not stopping to ask herself just why she knew to go there, and wandered cautiously down the hall, past the history faculty's offices. It being a class day, there was a steady hum of commerce, but down at the end, there was only one person. A little old lady with a cane and a hat and an overcoat, intently studying the nameplate on door 302.

Emma slowed, confused. For some reason, she too had been angling for office 302 – Professor Jones' office, now that she remembered. She cleared her throat and coughed.

The little old lady glanced up. Her hair was perfectly white, her face wizened, but her blue eyes were still clear and sharp as a blade. "Excuse me, miss." She had a posh, old-school British accent: tea and crumpets and the _London Times_ in the drawing room, croquet on the lawn, Sunday Anglican services in a quaint thousand-year-old countryside chapel. "I'm terribly sorry, but would you happen to know where I'd find Mr. Killian Jones, please?"

"I. . . no." Emma was surprised. It was a reasonable enough question to ask; she was a student, she was plainly coming to the same place, the old woman might well infer that she had the inside track. "I. . . I actually heard that he's not going to be around for the rest of the year. Personal problems. He used to teach my class, but. . . he doesn't anymore."

The old lady's lips went very thin. She gripped her cane firmly, back straightening, a sudden, formidable, and fierce demeanor completely altering her entire aspect. "Well then," she said. "That's quite a pity. Because I didn't drop everything and fly here – on a bloody _aeroplane,_ no less – to be ignored. Or let him off the hook. He can run to the ends of the earth if he so pleases. He's not going to escape me."

* * *

He had to get out of here.

He didn't even know where yet. Just somewhere. Anywhere.

Gods, he missed his woman. The wooden one. And the flesh one. Both. But his _Roger_ especially now. That was how he'd always solved his problems: raising the sails and running.

Killian Jones, after awkwardly attempting to smooth over the wretched farce of a situation with the nonexistent town he'd told the police harbored a murder suspect, had made one of his decidedly least dignified exits and not stopped until he got back to his apartment in Boston. One sleepless, rum-soaked night, one bloody bitch of a hangover, and one pacing, neurotic day later, he'd decided that it was too late. He'd compromised himself enough, made enough of a mess. The history department chair had convinced him to take a leave of absence rather than quitting outright, but if she knew what a bastard he really was, she'd have sacked him on the spot. He'd offered, racked with rage and regret, but she told him that his students had only glowing things to say about him and the college remained very satisfied with his hire. _Not if they knew what I've bloody been doing with Miss Nolan._

Gods, Emma. He'd been fiercely resisting the temptation to at least find out if she was all right; it was better that he shut that door entirely. He'd done his part. Everything he owed. Gone down to her room and stood silently at the foot of her bed, watching her still, lifeless body forced to continue breathing by the ventilator. Fought back his guilt at getting her into the mess. Reminded himself that he was the last person she needed to see, ever again.

At last, he shook his head, stepped forward, and left the note from her father on her bedside tray, by the untouched cup of water, where she'd see it when she woke up. Then he'd bent down and kissed her briefly, chastely on the forehead, an apology and a farewell. He straightened up, turned around, and never looked back. Driven up to Maine with the police, in desperate, hungering hope. _And look how bloody well that worked out for you, Jones._

Fine, then. He was done with hoping. Done with thinking he could manage. He had already made himself too vulnerable, and the pain of missing Milah was almost incapacitating. Staying here, knowing that Storybrooke lay so close and yet so utterly far – it would evict the last frangible remnants of sanity from him permanently. If he had any chance of holding it together, he had to go.

Hence, his apartment was mostly in boxes – half of which had never been unpacked in the first place. He didn't have much; he never did. Barely even any furniture. He'd be out of here by the next morning. And he didn't plan on coming back.

Killian was throwing his books into a crate, wondering if he could even stand to go back to BC and clean out his office, when the knock came on the door.

Startled, he jerked up so fast that he banged his head on the shelf, and spent several moments swearing viciously under his breath. Then he crossed the creaking old floor of the flat, took a hard grip on his hook (he'd taken to carrying it everywhere with him) and opened it a crack. "Aye?"

"Mr. Jones?" said the unfamiliar woman's voice. "Killian Jones?"

"Aye," he said again, still more taken aback. He didn't think he knew her, whether from BC or elsewhere. Of medium height, slender and elegant, with smooth cocoa-colored skin and straight black hair, carrying a long, bulky parcel that instantly made him suspicious. "Can I help you?"

"I don't know. I think you can." She shrugged. "I certainly think you can."

"Do I know you, lass?"

"Now you do." She flashed a quick, sly smile, and held out her free hand. "Tamara."

"Pleasure," he said curtly. "What are you doing on my doorstep?"

She shrugged again, then lifted up the parcel, peeling back the wrappings. He had time for an instant of horrorstruck certainty before she held up his own sword, the one he thought he'd lost for good in Robert Gold's mansion in Storybrooke, the one Emma had kicked under the sofa just as Humbert arrived to stick his fool nose in their business. "Missing this?"

He made a grab for it, but she jerked it out of his reach. "Give that to me!"

"Ah." She looked pleased. "So it _is_ yours?"

"Pet," Killian growled. "You have about one bloody second to hand that over before I – "

"Before you try to kill me too?" She didn't rattle easily, he'd give her that. "Yes, I've heard you're good at that. The trying to kill, and the failing."

"What do you want?"

"Since I have this, you know where I've been." She smiled. "What if I told you that I had a way to get to Storybrooke? And a perfect opportunity for you?"

Killian went very still. He'd readily made alliances with frightening women of doubtful character before, if it got him closer to his aim, but for once, he managed to hold his tongue. He just studied her without a word, then said, "What makes you think that name means anything to me?"

"Please." She shook her head, then held the sword out to him. "Here. Good faith?"

He hesitated again, then took it. _I could drive it through her right now._ Yet that would be just the thing to complicate his disappearance, if he acquired another murder charge – of a person who would be noticed, who was real. Without a word, he strapped it to his belt.

"Follow me." Tamara beckoned, and he grudgingly stepped out after her, down the apartment stairs into the cold night, to the back lot where her car, a silver Lexus, was parked with a U-Haul trailer hitched to the back. She bent down and unlocked the rolling door.

Killian was skeptical and tense, his old fighting instincts on bristling edge; he was more than half convinced that she had something large and homicidal within, and moved his hand to his newly restored sword. But as the trailer door opened, he saw something – _someone –_ else entirely.

It was a young woman in a torn white hospital gown, tied up and gagged. A very familiar young woman with luxuriant brown curls and wide, terrified blue eyes, a young woman who plainly had no idea who he was, even though he'd backhanded her in a cell and nearly killed her. A young woman who, upon setting eyes on him, must have thought he'd come to save her.

Her.

_Her._

The crocodile's woman.


	14. Chapter 14

Between the two of them, Tamara and Killian hauled the bound girl out of the trailer and up the stairs to his flat. This would be a bloody perfect time for the neighbors to come snooping, but the one advantage of living in a building populated largely by incurious geriatrics and impecunious graduate students was that at this hour, they were either long since asleep or still hunched over their desks, and had no desire to poke their heads out to see what might be thumping down the hallway. At any rate, they got her into the apartment without being spotted, and dropped her on the couch like a sack of laundry, as she gazed up at them with frantic, imploring eyes. She was trying to speak through the gag, and he for one was interested in what she had to say; besides, his old gentlemanly nature did not _quite_ see how this was necessary. He unsheathed his pocket knife and cut it.

"Th-thank you." She turned her head weakly to the side and spat. "I… I don't know what you want. I – I haven't done anything to anyone, I've been…" She screwed up her face, as if trying to remember. "In the hospital, but… I don't… someone left the door open, I ran… I was trying to escape, but the woods… I got lost, I didn't know…"

Killian frowned. Pieces were suddenly clicking together in his brain: that strange white figure he'd seen in the forest outside Storybrooke, just as he was arriving… could it have been? If she _had_ been making a bid for freedom, that raised all sorts of intriguing questions, not least as to who had tried to loose her and for what purpose, and what she was afraid might be catching up to her as she ran. _This madwoman, from the looks of things._ Not trusting Tamara a brass dam, and feeling that it could only be to his advantage to paint himself as the sympathetic one in this situation, he asked, "What's your name, lass?"

She frowned, searching for the word as if it was on the tip of her tongue, then shook her head. "I… don't remember. It's… it might have been… Lacey?"

 _Lacey?_ Now there was a surprise, although it shouldn't have been. Clearly the curse had been playing some sort of footsie with her memories as well, and Killian stroked his chin, considering. _I could tell her that her name is Belle and she's in love with a wretched beast, but what good is she to me if she remembers nothing about him?_ He touched his hook, still hidden inside his pocket. _I could rip her heart out and dump her body on the reptile's porch._ It would be a fitting conclusion, perhaps, but he didn't want to commit himself to anything too hastily.

"Lacey," was what he said aloud, with a winsome smile. "Well then. You look as if you've had a bit of rough handling. You're hungry, no doubt?"

She nodded cautiously.

Killian didn't want to turn his back on Tamara, but he did still have the sword at his belt, and so he headed into the flat's small kitchen and opened up the refrigerator in search of anything marginally palatable. By sweet fortune, there were two large and delicious-looking sausage rolls, so he collected them both, returned, offered one to Belle, and pointedly kept the other for himself. He took a bite, encouraging her to do the same, and she took a few small ladylike nibbles, then devoured the rest with barely a breath, looking rather beastlike herself.

"Now," Killian said, leaning back and glancing up at Tamara. "Enlighten me on what exactly you plan to do with the lass."

Her eyes flickered. "In front of her?"

"Do you prefer behind? I don't think I've tried it that way yet." He flashed a smile: cutting, insolent, blue eyes turned almost black. A pirate's leer – and one which, despite all its suggestive words, was warning Tamara to keep her bloody distance. "You have, after all, bound her up, abducted her, and carted her here in the back of a trailer like a dog in a kennel. I should say she deserves the bare decency of an explanation."

Tamara raised an exquisite eyebrow, apparently impressed. Whatever she'd thought she was coming to play with was clearly not quite what she'd found. _Good._ "I didn't know you had such a soft side, Captain."

"And what the bloody hell," he enquired, doing his damndest not to think about the fact that she apparently knew _exactly_ who he was, "do you think about me, pet?"

She shrugged. "I could tell you, but we're on a tight schedule. So let's get down to business. As we were leaving Storybrooke, something… odd… happened. I don't know how to explain it, but it was a pulse, as if the entire place was shaking. I turned and tried to go back, but I couldn't. Not even with her." She pointed at her prisoner. "Something's changed."

Killian's eyes narrowed. "You _told_ me you had a way to get there."

"I do." Gods, she was a slippery one. "But it's going to require some work."

"So." He steepled his fingers beneath his chin and stared at her coolly. "You're saying that the previous method, in which ordinary folk like you and I could cross the town line and find the place if we had a citizen of said town accompanying us, is no longer effective?"

"You catch on quickly, Captain."

"Always been a fast learner." He snapped his teeth. "So now comes the part where you ask me for help in carrying out whatever dirty work needs to be done to secure our ticket back to Storybrooke, is that it?"

"Storybrooke?" Belle interrupted, bewildered. "I don't understand. How do you even know about it? You were just there, why do you need to go back?"

"Yes, I was there, but I didn't find what I was looking for." Tamara smiled predatorily. "So I'm trying something new. You just keep quiet, honey."

For a moment Belle looked as if she was about to disobey, but looking at both of them, neither of them the most comforting of personages, apparently convinced her of the better part of valor. Ignoring her, Killian turned back to Tamara. "So? What do you want?"

"There _is_ one way we can get back to Storybrooke. Me to do what I need to do, and you to do what you need to do. We just need to… retrieve someone."

Killian's guard was instantly up. "Who?"

"No one you know."

"I'll be the judge of that. _Who?"_

"No one you know," Tamara repeated. "Nobody. I've done some looking. They have no family, no parents, no one who will miss them. Foster kid, the troubled kind. More than a few brushes with the law. Be a favor to everyone to take them off the streets."

" _Streets…_ and yet, you can't just go bundle this unfortunate into your trailer by yourself?"

"If I'm planning to make it a habit, I could use a pirate to help." She returned his own charming crocodile grin to him. "And besides, that's not exactly what concerns me. Here's the delicate part. This person, despite their other problems, is – for the moment – still at school. A college student. Can you guess where?"

A moment, then horrid realization. "Oh." Killian leaned back in his chair, feeling as if he'd just been hit by a car. "You cold-blooded bitch. You're asking me to nab one of Boston College's own students off campus for you?" He racked his brains, trying to guess who could possibly be the culprit. There was always gossip in the faculty dining room if someone… but wait. There _was_ one student who fit the bill. Mysterious, deadbeat, no apparent family save his questionable Russian roommates, and who Killian happened to know ran a side enterprise in marijuana that had just come most embarrassingly to light. _Who bloody just shoveled the blame onto Miss Nolan and did a bunk._ He hadn't liked the look of the man a bit, but Neal Cassidy _did_ remind him of someone he had known long ago… yet that was surely far too much, just an unsettling coincidence. _Why would he still be anywhere within a hundred miles of the place, however?_

"A Boston College student," Killian repeated. "You're serious."

"Very. Why? Still loyal? I thought you quit."

"Leave of absence." Bloody hell, he was liking her less and less every second, but she did demonstrably have useful talents and a complete lack of scruple, and now that revenge was the only thing left, he would have to take his allies as they came. "And again, how do you know that?"

"I have powerful friends." She smiled demurely. "Help me out, and they'll take care of you too. They can make you disappear to wherever you want to go, free as a bird. No one will ever know what happened in the past, your past. You could even get a job as a professor with our institute – and we pay _much_ better, trust me. Get an upgrade from this place. You'd be doing important, world-changing research. Think about it?"

There was some sort of rat here, but he couldn't quite catch it. He would much prefer to catch Cassidy and make him bloody account for himself at the point of a sword, however, and if that unraveled a thread that led to Storybrooke, so much the better. But there remained one concern. "What do we do with her?" He jerked his head at Belle.

"That's your lookout, Captain. That's why I brought her. She will be free for you to use any way you please – as soon as you help me retrieve our friend and get to Storybrooke."

Killian eyed her narrowly. Meanwhile, Belle was making some attempt to loosen her bound hands, but he shot her a quelling look, and she shrank. "Are you going to kill me?"

"I'm thinking about it," he informed her matter-of-factly, with another of those rakish, bloody smiles. "Terribly sorry."

She bit her lip and stared at the ground. In a small voice she said, "You just… I saw you had so many books, and if it's true that you're a professor… I just thought someone who read that much would know more about the world. About… about _people,_ and good and evil. About justice, even. That you would know it's wrong. I can't stop you if you do, but I would hope that you at least do yourself the courtesy of _thinking_ about it."

A sardonic reply sprang to Killian's lips – then died a sudden, troubled death. He shifted his seat uncomfortably. She had just confronted him with the fact that not only was he conspiring to kidnap one of his own institution's students, but that she herself reminded him uncomfortably of one. Bright, thoughtful, eager to read and learn and consider the world's problems, different from any of the young women in his classes only by virtue of having the singular ill judgment to take up as the crocodile's paramour. _Anything I do to her would be a mercy. He murdered his own wife, why wouldn't he do the same to any other innocent he caught in his jaws?_ Killian could at least realize that Belle had committed no crime of her own – seemed barely aware of who she was, just like the rest of them – but an old, furious, bitter, burning rage had resurfaced in him, choking him. _Captain Hook. The black-hearted, no-good, filthy pirate._

"Very well," he said, getting to his feet. "In the trailer for her again, then. Let's not waste time."

"I'll scream," Belle warned him bravely, as he grabbed her by the wrists and jerked her to her feet. "I'll scream, I'll – "

"No, you won't." He leaned in, intimidating her with his proximity, staring her down until their noses almost touched. He reached into his pocket and slipped the hook out, curving it along her neck and flicking her brown curls away, drawing the smallest drop of blood. _No point forgetting what you are, you rotten bastard. The worst human alive._ He smiled. "Otherwise I _will_ kill you."

* * *

"I'm sorry," Emma said, hurrying at the old lady's side as they descended the stairs of Stokes Hall – for a nonagenarian, she was awfully spry. "I – I didn't catch your name?"

"That's quite all right, dear, I don't recall dropping it. But you did say you used to be a student of our mutual friend Mr. Jones, did you not? And now he's gone and left you behind the same as he did me, so we can both kick his arse when we find him." Apparently oblivious to Emma's shock, the old lady crossed the foyer and opened the door, stepping out into the clear, breezy morning. "My, but this _is_ lovely. I'm glad to see they're putting my money to good use."

"You – ?" Oh fuck. She must be a trustee, or an alumni chair, or someone else with deep pockets and strings to pull, who had caught wind of the curious case of Killian Jones and was here to smite him down before he could further besmirch the institution's good name. Even though she was completely unclear on the details, that still seemed somewhat harsh to Emma. But whoever this white-haired, cane-wielding vigilante was, she'd want to meet someone well-adjusted, someone with good grades and a bright future. A good advertisement for a Boston College education, not this hopeless relict of a sophomore who was barely hanging on by a thread. Emma Swan was not the best representation of bang for your buck.

"Indeed." The old lady sniffed. "Of course it _is_ a Catholic school, which can't be helped, but Jane married that Irishman from Derry and all of us had to mind our p's and q's somewhat more than previously and learn to pray the rosary, or at least not roll our eyes while he prays his. Professor, you know. Queer sort. Taught at Trinity – that's how I got Killian into the poor unsuspecting place, by the by, and then his job here. He _does_ want to keep it, I assume?"

"I –I have no idea," Emma stammered. Why would she know anything about that? "I – I'm sorry, I'm really no help for you. I – I should probably be going."

The old lady cocked her head and evaluated her with a bright, piercing sparrow's gaze. "What's your name, dear?"

"I – Emma. Emma… Swan."

"Emma?" One of the other woman's eyebrows went up, and then up further. "You wouldn't happen to know a Wendy James?"

"Actually, yes. She's… she's my roommate." Oh God, could _this_ be Wendy's grandmother? The one from London? What could she possibly be here for – had Wendy called her and told her to slap the entire BC campus back into sense? Emma wouldn't put it past her, but for a woman this influential and well-connected to find about her transgressions…

"Ah. Excellent. I was hoping to see you, and here you are, like divine providence. I'm sure I'm permitted to say that; they haven't arrested me for being Anglican yet, have they? Very well. Don't stand there with your mouth hanging open like a lackwit, dear. It's not a good look for you, and I am decidedly sure that you are not a lackwit. Come along."

Still flattened, Emma could think of nothing to do but meekly obey. Feeling as if she'd been clubbed, she trailed at the old lady's heels as she powered across campus like a whirlwind, cane tapping; Emma was actually the one trotting to keep up. They turned in before the impressive Gothic buildings of Lyons and Devlin, which faced each other across the Quad, and the old lady eyed them both, then turned up the steps to Lyons. Emma, since she was apparently included in this enterprise, stared imploringly up at heaven and followed.

Five minutes later, they were inside the administrative offices, Emma lurking in the corner and doing her best not to be noticed, while the old lady interrogated some helpless student employee in a way that was distinctly reminiscent of Jack. They were then shipped on to the dean of the faculty's office in an apparent attempt to get rid of them, and the old lady marched in as if she owned the place (which she very well might). "I have an enquiry, please."

The receptionist glanced up, then blanched. "Mrs… Mrs. Henley?"

"If it pleases you. Edward's been dead quite a while now, so I use my maiden name more often. I'll see the dean, shall I?"

"Yes, yes of course…" Completely flustered, the receptionist got up and scuttled.

While she was gone, Emma glanced at the other woman. "I… I don't think you need me, so I'll just…?" She made a hopeful motion toward the door.

"Oh no, dear." The old lady snapped her fingers autocratically. "Sit."

Emma did so, as abruptly as if her knees had just given out. Thus she waited, until the receptionist returned with the dean. His reaction of shocked surprise was the same, if somewhat more muted. "Mrs. Henley?"

"Bother that. Call me Wendy." The old lady smiled. "I have a question."

"Of – of course, ma'am." The middle-aged academic looked as if he had just walked into the presence of the Queen of England. "What can I help you with?"

"There's a Professor Killian Jones here. Or rather there was, and now there's not. I'd like to know where he's gone, please."

"Ah… Professor Jones? He… it was a personal matter. Didn't give details. Had a brief conversation with the history department chair… not sure I'm the person to ask about this…" The dean had started to perspire slightly. "I'm afraid I don't have any information to give out. Privacy laws, confidentiality. Can I possibly help you with – "

"You know who I am, I see?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You are aware of how much money I donated to the school last year, and that it was on my recommendation that Professor Jones was hired?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What are you waiting for?"

"Yes, ma'am." The dean exited.

While they were waiting, Wendy – she apparently shared a name with her granddaughter – looked to the receptionist. "And I don't suppose you can fetch the dean of students, dear?"

"They – the office of the dean of students is in Maloney, you can – "

"Surely you don't expect me to walk all that way? I'm ninety-four, and you're a young thing. I'll wait."

"Yes, ma'am." The receptionist exited.

There followed a tense silence until the panting receptionist returned with the dean of students in tow, who was then introduced to Wendy in the same jarring fashion as his colleagues. "What can I help you with, Mrs. Henley?"

"This young lady here." Wendy indicated Emma. "I've been informed that she's on some sort of probation. Why?"

Emma's jaw dropped. She was on the verge of asking how the old lady knew that, but decided it would be a pointless exercise – clearly, that kind of money opened all the closets and let the skeletons topple out. She tried to say something, but was overruled as the dean did his best to explain, none of which Wendy apparently found very satisfactory. When he was finished, she sniffed again, then informed them both that she would be looking further into the subject, and expected to pay a repeat call when she did. She was then interrupted by the return of the dean of the faculty, who looked surprised to see her and was clearly hoping that she had gone away.

"Well?" Wendy held out her hand. "Do you have something for me?"

"Here." Abashed, the man handed her a slip of paper. "It's his phone number."

Wendy pursed her lips, causing everyone present to wince, but accepted it with two fingers and fixed the lot of them with a basilisk stare. Then she jerked her head to summon Emma, leading her out into the hallway, and held out the paper. "Be a dear and call him for me, would you? I'm afraid I'm no good at all with technology."

"I, uh. I don't think I can just – "

"Put in the number. Even I can manage the rest."

As had already been discovered, Wendy wasn't the sort of woman you said no to, and Emma fumblingly dug in her backpack for her cell phone. She scrolled the screen open, accessing her text messages as she did so, and frowned in confusion; there were several old ones from someone named "Mary Margaret," who was no one she knew. Must have been a wrong number. She tapped it with her thumb, deleting them, then went back to the main screen and dialed.

It started to ring, and she handed it over to Wendy, who put it to her ear. The old lady listened, then frowned, then handed it back to Emma. "Terminate it, please."

"Er – ?"

"The number's been disconnected." The other woman scowled. "I begin to smell a rat."

"He… I get the feeling he doesn't really want to be found." Emma held up her hands. "Hey… I have to go, all right? Have… have a nice day."

And with that, ignoring Wendy's call after her, Emma turned on her heel and made a break for it. She didn't know why the old lady had taken such an interest in her, or her ulterior motive; whatever it was, it was clearly something, and she was sick and tired of being caught in the middle, a powerless pawn in a game of chess far over her head. She was already resenting Wendy –her roommate, that was – for calling her grandmother and bringing her here to interfere in their business, their lives. Oh god, that was probably the fucking intervention she and Alice had been planning, and they'd be all eager to hear if Emma had met her and how it had gone and if she "remembered" anything of her old self. It was discouraging and heartbreaking how they kept treating her like a confused child, who just needed a little push to remember. They meant well, but she couldn't stand to face them. She wanted to run.

Emma descended the stairs and stepped out into the late morning, shielding her eyes against the sun. Yeah. This was a familiar feeling.

She needed to disappear.

* * *

She cut class. She took the T into downtown Boston and got off at the first stop that looked likely, losing herself among the crowd. She ducked into a coffee shop and leached off their wi-fi until they realized she hadn't bought anything and more or less politely asked her to leave. Then she wandered up and down the streets of the retail district, watching all the happy families hurry by, enjoying the perfect autumn day. All the young couples holding hands. All the students who weren't in danger of being incarcerated and expelled. She ached for companionship. She ached for anyone. But at the same time, she wanted desperately to be left alone to grieve.

She didn't realize she'd been standing in the same spot for ten minutes until she saw herself reflected in the broad picture window of The Children's Place, pale and shiftless as a ghost. Jesus, she had to stop this. Tormenting herself wasn't going to bring back something she was lucky to have lost in the first place. Lucky. She didn't need that reminder of Neal. She didn't need to become a mother at the age of barely twenty, alone in the world, with her college education the only chance she had of escaping the single-mom trap.

Lucky.

Emma's shoulders convulsed with a silent sob as she turned away, and she angrily backhanded her knuckles across her eyes, turning up the collar of her black jacket. She wandered down Washington Street to the Old State House, perched in the middle of the downtown skyscrapers like something out of a time warp, and sat on the brick wall outside, swinging her legs and staring vacantly at nothing.

The day slipped away. It began to get colder as the sun vanished behind the buildings, and Emma supposed dully that she should probably get back to campus before someone decided to lead a search party. Assuming they would. She was almost tempted to stay out longer and make them worry, to see if anyone did care for her. But then there would be more drama, more worried questions, and that was even worse. More telling her that she could talk to them, she could always talk to them. Wouldn't she please talk to them.

Expelling a martyred sigh through her teeth, Emma hauled herself to her feet and started off. But then she changed her mind again and veered the other way on the sidewalk, up several blocks until she found some little café that was warm and glowing in the dusk, the kind of place you could imagine going with a family. She ducked inside and took a corner table. The Celtics game was on at the bar, and the waitress called her "honey." She ordered dinner and ate it very slowly, deleting every text message that popped up on her phone.

It was full dark and starting to get late by the time Emma finally left, having eaten dessert in the same leisurely fashion, then had a drink, then paid her bill. She should have felt worse about using her fake ID, the one Neal had made for her, but she had needed something to soothe her jangled nerves and it was the best option to hand. What else were they going to do to her?

The streetlights were on, casting pools of glow at intervals along the sidewalk, as she headed to the T station. She stood wearily waiting for the train, scrubbing her hair out of her eyes as the night wind tousled it across her face, and then stepped aboard the green line when it pulled in. Once again, her face reflected back at her in the window was a terrifying prospect.

Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at the Boston College station, and Emma stepped out into the darkness, switching on the mini flashlight on her keys. It was only a five-minute walk up to campus, less if she wanted to take the student shuttle, but to judge by the tail lights pulling out, she'd just missed it, and she didn't feel like waiting for the next one. She pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt and cinched it tight against the wind, then started to walk.

She'd only gotten about a hundred yards from the station, into the gap between well-lit areas that would probably give every student safety briefer a heart attack, when she heard the car rolling up behind her. So what? Big deal, it was a road, people drove on it. Commonwealth Avenue was just ahead, a major thoroughfare, cross it and head down to Walsh, go to bed and go to sleep. It sounded good. Wonderful, in fact. Then she'd –

She heard the brakes squeal behind her, heard the car stopping. She shot a glance back. It was a silver Lexus, pulling a U-Haul trailer. Probably tourists, or people who had just moved here and gotten lost. Well, she wasn't going to give them directions, or deal with their –

The car doors opened. Two dark figures jumped out, and closed in on her.

Emma stared. It took that second, that precious second too long, to realize that this was trouble. _Big_ trouble. She gaped, spun around, and started to run, but she was still weak and tired from her layover in the hospital and her inability to sleep or eat, and her feet went out from under her with a crash. She sprawled headlong, chewing her hands up on the gravel of the shoulder as she tried to break her fall, and winded herself completely. The next second, they were on top of her.

Arrest. Poison. Hospital stay. Coma. Criminal charges. Amnesia, or the world's sickest joke. "Intervention." Probation. Abandonment. And now, being mugged by a couple of losers lying in wait for unsuspecting students, coming home late, alone, and drunk. Students like her.

You know what?

_Fuck. This. Shit._

Emma rolled, drew both feet back, and kicked the first mugger as they loomed over her. By the sound of the grunt, it was a woman – the other one was taller, definitely a guy. Partners in crime, how sweet. Except not at all. He reached for her, and she wound up and punched him full in the face, her knuckles crashing into his cheek and sending him reeling backwards. Both of them were wearing dark hoods, she couldn't see their faces, but she didn't need to. She grabbed the girl as she came for her again, jabbed her thumb into her elbow and bent her arm, ducked under it and twisted, and judo-threw her to the asphalt.

One down, one to go. The guy was still coming for her. Something was faintly, horribly familiar about him, but Emma didn't have time to ponder. She leapt over the female mugger and made a break for it, harder than she'd ever run in her life, hearing the guy sprinting after her. Then there was a ringing rasp – a sound for all the world as if he'd drawn a sword – and the next second, a blinding pain lacerated up the back of her leg.

Hell. Fucking _hell._ He'd _thrown_ it at her, and he hadn't missed. In fact, his aim had been terrifyingly perfect, and it sent a jolt of freezing realization up Emma's spine. This wasn't your average lowlife criminal, looking to skin a few bucks and maybe a joint off a broke and terrified college student. This was some kind of psychopath. All he lacked was the hockey mask, and unless she could run, he was going to kill her.

Emma filled her lungs for a scream, but she never got to it. At that moment, headlights blasted around the turn – head _light,_ in fact, a motorcycle – and screamed to a halt next to her. "On!" the rider bellowed. "Get on!"

Holy mother of Moses. She knew him. What the absolute _fuck_ he was doing here right now, burning up out of the midnight oil like her guardian angel, she didn't know, but it was indisputably him. The guy named after a month. July – no, August. She vaguely remembered pepper-spraying him at one point, and thus didn't count him as a better choice of ally than the madman who was about to kill her. But did she really have a –

"Emma!" the man screamed. "Trust me!"

There was a horrible noise from behind her. Emma looked around wildly, and her sweatshirt hood fell down, her pale blonde hair tumbling down her shoulders. The man who had been chasing her had fallen to his knees, almost on all fours, still making that noise as if he was about to be sick. He was gasping, clearly out of commission for the immediate future, but she didn't want to find out. She didn't want to trust August. Yet even more, she was terrified to stay here. The good thing about this cavalcade of luridly unfortunate events was that she was hard pressed, at the moment, to see how her life could actually get worse.

She had nothing to lose anymore. Nothing.

_Fuck it._

Emma threw herself onto the Harley behind August, clutching madly around his waist. He gunned the engine, she glanced back one last time, and saw her erstwhile attacker still on his knees, absolutely motionless. But then she turned back, discovering to her own detached surprise that she was crying, uttering dry, punching, rhythmic sobs of pain and fear, completely at the end of her rope, as the motorcycle veered off, out of sight, roaring away into the night.


	15. Chapter 15

All Killian Jones could hear was the roaring in his ears. He did not know if it was from the departing motorcycle or from the blood banging in his head like a jackhammer, and his hands fumbled blindly at the rough pavement, trying to push the world back into its accustomed dimensions, but he couldn't. He could barely breathe, barely move, as the shock thundered through him like a freight train. _Bloody hell. Bloody, bloody, fucking hell! It can't – she said – she lied, she said I didn't know them, I thought it was Cassidy, she_ lied –

 _No,_ another voice said. _You lied to yourself, you bastard. You wanted to believe it was Cassidy, so you did. Never even asked a bloody question._ And now it was over. He'd crossed the line, there was no turning back. Boston College should never allow him to instruct their students again if they knew what was good for them, and he had enough pride left not to beg. _I tried. God damn it, I tried._ But they didn't give out medals for that. He'd left everything behind to come here, to change his life, and yet now that he had found out that Gold was still alive, the darkness had come exploding up to consume him. There was nothing else he could think about, nothing else he could even _dream_ about, than murdering the crocodile slowly.

Killian had never come to terms with Milah's death. Had never been able to crawl into the vault of blackened memories that she was part of, sift through them, and accept the extent of the wreckage. But he had thought that perhaps he could just not think about it long enough to function. He might not have a life, but at least he could go on existing, and that – until now – was what he'd done. But his heart flatly overruled his head. Even if it meant putting a comfortable job in serious jeopardy, destroying the investment of his Trinity education, ripping apart Storybrooke and the lives of its citizens, and betraying the one woman who had helped him, he had to go after Gold once he discovered that the crocodile was alive. _Had_ to. And as his priest friend Father Kovak would have told him, bad roots and bad trees could only bear bad fruit.

After another shattered moment, Killian lurched to his feet. The motorcycle was long gone, the night almost quiet again, except for Tamara gasping for breath nearby; apparently she'd been thrown quite hard. _Good._ He stumbled to retrieve his sword, still edged with a bright crimson line of blood from where it had sliced the back of Emma's leg as she ran, and shuddered, barely able to look at it as he wiped it clean. Then he whirled around and stormed back to Tamara, flicking the point to her throat as she attempted to get up. "You stay there, pet," he snarled.

She coughed, wiped her mouth, and stared up at him coolly. "And what did I do?"

"You told me I didn't know them! That I didn't know _her!"_

"Oh?" Tamara's eyes narrowed. She might be flat on her back, held at swordpoint by an extremely angry and emotionally unbalanced pirate, but the gears were clearly turning. "So you _do?_ I didn't lie to you, Captain. I had no reason to think you did. And I have to say, I'm surprised by this. Revenge isn't a victimless crime. Someone always has to get hurt."

 _Not her. I didn't want to hurt her._ Killian could find no words to utter it, however, and didn't want to entrust the bitch with the information. She already knew far too much about him, her and her bloody mysterious friends, wanting to attack Storybrooke for conveniently obscure reasons of their own. Whatever that was, it couldn't be any nobler than what he –

At that moment, something white caught his eye. It was a scrap of paper, which had fallen out of Tamara's pocket when Emma took her down, and Killian, keeping his sword to her throat to warn her not to try anything funny, lunged for it with his free hand and picked it up. It looked like a business card, a glitzy entertainment ad. _Tiger Lily and the Lost Boys._

"What is this?" Despite his best efforts, his voice shook. "What the hell is this?"

"My day job," Tamara said flatly. "I'm a singer with a club band."

"Why that name?"

"My business." Her eyes glittered.

"Do you work with them?" Killian gave the sword a twist, so Tamara choked and tried to inch out from under it. A bead of blood was blooming under the point, at the hollow of her throat. "Do you work for _Him?"_

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She winced. "Don't do something you'll regret."

"Really?" he breathed, increasing the pressure. "Why not?"

She grinned, holding up her cell phone. "Because I've just called Boston College security. What I'll tell them when they get here is up to you. Either that a man on a motorcycle mugged me and got away, or that a man with a sword. . . well. . . didn't. I'm guessing they'll recognize you."

A twisted smile peeled back Killian's lips. "Well played," he granted her, stepping away and sheathing the sword. "You'll understand, then, if I have to make my exit. Come back when you're ready to proceed in some way that doesn't involve this bloody nonsense."

"I'm always ready to proceed." She sat up carefully, dabbing away the blood on her neck. "I have a cause that I believe in wholeheartedly, and nothing stands in the way of what needs to get done. What about _you,_ Captain? It looks to me like you're the one having second thoughts. Maybe you didn't love your woman as much as you think?"

"Don't – you – bloody – _dare_ tell me that I didn't love Milah!" All he could see was red. He wanted to kill her then and there, wanted to put his sword through her heart and twist and shove it in again, but he could see the lights of the approaching BC security patrol car, and that would be a very, very bad first impression. He turned away, put his head down, and lit out up the road, toward the T station. He didn't dare to glance back.

He was halfway to downtown Boston, apparently looking so beside himself that he had two empty seats both front and rear, before he stopped shaking. He hadn't felt this off the handle in a very long time, and it terrified him. He was far into the boundary of legal guilt, so well as moral, and he unwillingly thought of Belle, still tied up in the U-Haul. _I doubt campus security will ask to search Tamara's trailer._ He could call in a tip, but he didn't know what the bloody bitch might have said about him. And besides, what matter was the crocodile's woman? She could suffer, and suffer plenty. Not a damn thing to him.

Killian was so distracted that he almost missed his stop, and stumbled off the train into the late night. He thought of getting a hotel, in case Tamara showed up at his apartment again, but if so, he intended to be there to meet her; he had never been one to run from a fight. _Which makes my current doing so still more perplexing._ Even if Tamara had been telling the truth that she hadn't expected him to know Emma, she had been lying about the girl herself – foster kid? No parents, juvi rap sheet, one step above living on the streets? That didn't gel with the well-adjusted, obviously loved daughter he'd met – her parents doted on her, she came from a solidly middle-class upbringing, and hadn't struck him as a magnet for trouble. Tamara was just spinning a likely story out of her arse to get him to –

Wait.

Killian froze in midstep as something hit him broadside. What Tamara had said when she'd first come to his flat, about how something had changed in Storybrooke, so the old manners of doing things no longer worked. It had been difficult to find before, but was now impossible – suggesting that something about the curse had been reworked, a catch tripped, a clause invoked. Clearly, Emma had not only survived eating the turnover, but was out of the hospital. . . yet that didn't mean that everything was the same as before. What if some combination of her coma, her parents and the crocodile leaving Storybrooke, and the indisputable presence of Regina attempting to cause mischief had done something to all of them? What if she'd forgotten? What if she _had_ become – or thought she had – a girl abandoned since birth, frightened and alone?

 _Not my business,_ Killian reminded himself again. But the idea was already gaining momentum, and the memory of realizing that it was her, her hair tumbling and her eyes wide in terror, made him want to be sick again. _What did you do, you bloody son of a bitch? What did you do?_

He swallowed hard, shook his head, and kept walking. Gods, how he wanted to go home, shut himself into his flat, and drink himself into oblivion – this was a bloody college town, there had to be a liquor store still open somewhere. But that would cripple his ability to defend himself in the event of more trouble, which seemed entirely likely, and thus would have to wait until his escape was made good. _Any fucking time you get around to it, Jones._

At last, he turned into his street, went up the steps of his building, and let himself in. The sleepy doorman didn't even look up, and Killian hurried past, up the narrow creaking stairwell. Two, three, four flights up, to his apartment at the end. He reached into his pocket, fumbling for his keys, thinking that it would just be like this wretched night if he'd somehow dropped them or left them behind. But no, they were there, and now he'd just –

It was then that the woman in the shadows stepped out, and scared him almost to bloody death.

"Hello, Killian."

Oh, fuck it. Fuck it fuck it fuck it a hundred and a hundred times more to some godforsaken depths of bloody fucking damnable bleeding pustulant arse-licking _fucking_ hell.

His voice barely sounded like his own. He couldn't turn around.

"Hello, Wendy."

* * *

Emma lost track of how long they rode. The dark trees whipped by, the lights of other buildings spaced increasingly far apart until it was only the cold New England night as far as she could see, and she grew increasingly certain that this was no rescue at all. For all she knew, this guy worked for a sex-trafficking ring or something, pretending to swoop in and rescue vulnerable young women from bad situations, before turning around and trapping them in one far worse. But if she threw herself off the motorcycle while it was going 75 mph, she would beyond doubt end up straight back in the hospital, and she had had utterly fucking enough for that place for a lifetime. She'd have to wait until they stopped to nail him. And hitchhike home. And pray to God that the law of averages prevented her from running into any more psychopaths. Considering her current run of luck, it sounded like a horrible bet.

A thousand half-baked ideas and frantic plans were racing through her head, which at least had the effect of distracting her from the throbbing pain in the back of her leg. When she reached down with her free hand to fumble at it, she discovered that while the cut was very shallow, it had scored almost the entire length of her calf from her knee to her ankle, and was bleeding enough to stick her jeans painfully to the skin. She grimaced as she pulled it off. The memory still made her shudder; she'd faced a lot of things in her young life, but not that. _Who the fuck carries a_ sword, _much less actually_ stabs _someone with it? Yeah, I definitely felt it._

At last, her rescuer/possible abductor turned off the road, and the roar of the bike's engine dimmed to a sputtering growl, then died. The guy – August – swung off, then offered her a hand, but she didn't take it. She jerked away and scrambled around, getting the bulk of the Harley between them, then pointed her index finger in her pocket like it was a pistol. "You better start talking."

August shook his head. "Emma, you don't have a gun."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because if you did, you wouldn't have needed me to rescue you. And I'm here to help, I promise. Think of me as your. . . guardian angel."

"Yeah? You've been doing a pretty crap job." Emma stayed light on her feet – ready, if he lunged at her, to dodge away and knee him where it hurt. "And all right, I might not have a gun, but I swear to fucking God, if you don't start talking, I will _end_ you."

August looked taken aback. "You're pretty tough, huh?"

"I haven't really had a choice," Emma said between her teeth. "Now that we've cleared that up, tell me how you know my name and why you've been stalking me. Short version. One minute."

August raked a hand through his brown curls. "It's complicated."

"How did I know you were going to say that? Fifty seconds."

"Emma, I – " Just then, he caught sight of the blood, her slashed and stained jeans, and gaped. "You're hurt. Let me – "

"If you lay a finger on me, I will tie your balls around your throat. Thirty seconds."

He was starting to look a little hot under the collar. _Good._ Finally he blurted out, "Look, I just – where did you grow up?"

"You suck at this game. You didn't tell me anything, and you're out of time. _Hasta mañana, amigo."_ Emma turned around, as if she was about to make a disdainful exit – yeah, fucking where? They'd passed a few farmhouses, she could maybe. . . but it was idiotic to think she could outrun the motorcycle, especially with her bad leg. She put weight on it, and it buckled.

In a flash, August was at her side, his concern for his balls apparently disregarded as he offered her a steadying arm. She bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood, leaning on him a lot harder than she wanted to admit. "Look," he said. "I know this is kind of creepy, but I was trying to find a place where we could have privacy. This is too important to screw around with. But maybe we get back on the bike, find a late-night urgent care for that leg, and go have a drink?"

"Yeah, I don't go anywhere with guys who won't tell me their real name or why they're stalking me. Weeds out the ones who are already married or keep body parts in their freezers. Besides, I'm underage. Want me to bust you for offering alcohol to a minor, when I call the police to report a kidnapping?"

"You're not going to call the police."

"Try me."

"You've had a lot of chances already. You haven't." August shrugged. "Besides, you don't want to deal with them again. Things might get finicky. With your pending charges and everything."

Emma actually felt herself turning cold all over. "And _how_ do you know that, exactly?"

"My business. All right, short version. My name is August W. Booth. I'm following you because you have a destiny, and you need to fulfill it. Now, how about that drink?"

"Excuse me, you did just hear me tell you that I'm – "

He cocked an eyebrow. "I've got bigger things to worry about. So, are you coming with me, or am I leaving you here to walk home?"

"You son of a _bitch."_ Emma's fingers curled, quivering with the desire to punch him, but that was, unfortunately, an effective bargaining position. She limped back to the Harley and got on, wrapping her arms around him purposefully tight enough to make him wheeze. Then he kicked the bike back to life and pulled out, roaring down the quiet country lane in a way that was almost guaranteed to make some crotchety retiree file a noise complaint. But then they were gone, and she knew that no matter how weird this night had already gotten, it had only just begun.

Half an hour later, after making a stop at an all-night drugstore for bandages, Bactine, and painkillers for her leg, they'd patched her up more or less sufficiently and were installed in some crummy dive joint where the bartender hadn't even bothered to check Emma's fake. She was grateful; she wasn't nearly as drunk as she needed to be. Even remembering what had happened the _last_ time she'd gone out and gotten blitzed with a guy. . . August could be counting on it, planning to whisk her off to some equally trashy motel to have his way with her, but. . .

Wait. Emma frowned. That was the first time she'd remembered anything from the days immediately preceding her coma – until now, they'd just been a big black hole. But she'd gone to a club with Neal. . . they'd seen a band, the Lost Boys or something. . . she'd gotten wasted and woken up naked in his bed. . . she'd yelled at him and run, and someone had given her a ride back to campus. . . a woman, Emma thought, but didn't know who. It was all receding, back into the mists, as she growled and tried to snatch at it. It was the most fucking frustrating thing ever.

She and August both finished their first beers quickly, and he slipped the bartender some crumpled bills for another round. There were very few other patrons, and they weren't paying any attention; this was the kind of place you went to drown your sorrows as fast as possible. So Emma slurped the foam off and said, "Okay. Start talking."

He didn't immediately answer, staring pensively into the glass rack. He lifted his own drink and took a long slug, then asked again, "Where did you grow up?"

This was really not his goddamn business, but the only other option was to pour her beer on his head and steal his bike. She studied the scarred wood of the bar intently. "Here and there. It changed pretty much every year. Foster homes, if they'd have me. The children's institution, if they wouldn't. As I got older and more of a pain in the ass, it was harder and harder for the state to pay people to take me off their hands. I got good at looking out for myself. Finished high school and applied to college just to spite everyone who said I couldn't, to punch back and say no, _this_ is who I am. Yeah. That's it."

August looked stunned. "But you. . . all my investigations, everything I found out. . . Emma, I thought – I was sure – that you didn't escape it."

She stared at him blankly. "Escape what?"

He took a deep breath, and visibly commended his soul to God. "I need to tell you something."

"Wow. Finally."

"Just hear me out. It's going to sound crazy, but. . . just listen, all right?" Not waiting for her assent, he plunged ahead. "I. . . don't think you actually grew up that way. I think you just think you did. I don't know how exactly, but something is messing with your mind. A. . . a curse. You were supposed to escape it, but you didn't. And now everything is changed."

There was a very, very long silence. Then Emma said, "Come again?"

"Like I said. I know it sounds crazy. But there's a curse, all right? There's a curse on your entire hometown, and you're the one who has to end it. Your parents are affected by it, everybody. Nobody knows who they really are, including you, and you have to – whoa!"

August tried vainly to catch her beer, as Emma jerked back so hard that it rocked and slopped everywhere. _"No!"_ Her voice was a searing hiss. "It doesn't sound crazy, it _is_ crazy! If all this time you've been stalking me on this nutty delusion that I, that _I,_ could ever be some kind of – "

"It's too nutty to make up, isn't it? Why would I be wasting my time following you, if that wasn't exactly why – "

"Because you're a deluded hipster bad boy with an overactive imagination and no sense of personal boundaries? Seems just as likely." She ripped away when he reached out for her. "No. You-are-out-of-fucking- _line._ Thanks for the drink, July, but you better not _ever_ talk to me again, or I'll – "

"What if I told you where Neal is?"

She went very still. _"Excuse me?"_

"Neal. The guy who – "

"Yeah. I heard you the first time. And that's supposed to make me cooperate with you _how?"_

"Some things that happened between you and him. . . I might have had something to do with it." He glanced up again, imploring. "I was trying to get you away, wake you up. You needed to – "

Emma hauled off and slapped him.

August raised a hand to his cheek, blinking. "The hell was that. . .?"

The bartender looked over. "Everything all right, folks?"

"Fine," Emma informed him, with a teeth-achingly false smile. Then she turned back and whispered, "You are a stalker at best, and a very, very deeply psychotically disturbed individual at the worst, and whatever decisions you thought you were making to control my life were _not yours to make,_ do you understand me? Even if we pretend for one godforsaken second that you're telling the truth, it doesn't matter. My life is one giant steaming pile of shit, and I am _nobody's_ savior. I don't want that, I don't _want_ it! I can barely get out of bed in the morning without something horrible happening. So whatever messianic crusade you're on – or worse, you think _I'm_ on – you can shove it up your ass."

Once more she whirled to storm out, but once again, August's pleading voice followed her. "Emma, I know it's hard. I've messed up, I know I have – I've messed up so much since I came here. But I'm trying to do the right thing now, and just. . . there are people who need you. Really need you. All of us."

Emma made herself look back at him for a long, almost transcendent moment. Made herself memorize every detail of his face, so she'd be able to give the best description when she applied for the restraining order. So, if by some miserable fluke she ever saw him again, she'd know.

"Then," she breathed, her voice barely above a whisper. "You're all screwed."

And with that, she left.

* * *

"I – don't think this is the best time, my dear." Killian attempted an ingratiating smile. "Come back in the morning. I'll make you a proper cup of tea, we can chat and catch up and you can tell me just why you're here in – "

"If I come back in the morning, _you'll be gone!"_ The old lady advanced on him like a Panzer brigade, jabbing the tip of her cane into his chest. She was half his height and weighed perhaps a hundred pounds soaking wet, but nonetheless, there was no doubt about who was in charge here. "Precisely _how_ thick do you think I am, Killian Jones? No, don't answer that question, anything you have to say will only vex me further. In! Now!"

Directed by further prods of the cane, Killian unlocked his front door and marched in, Wendy Darling hot on his heels. As he hit the hallway light, she glanced around disapprovingly. " _Terrible_ mess. Why are you packing?"

"Took a leave of absence. Thought I'd. . . go back to Ireland for a while. Clear me head."

"Clear your head?" The old lady snorted loudly. "From the looks of things, if you cleared it any further, the last sensible thought in there might die of loneliness. And why? What would make you need to do that? Have you. . ."

She paused, then scrutinized him intently. In a softer voice, threatening and terrified at once, she said, "My God. You've fallen, haven't you? Fallen back. Straight into the open jaws of revenge."

"I have not," Killian protested. Reasonably convincingly, he thought. "But there _have_ been a few bumps, and I need a bit of a breather. None of your bloody business."

Wendy's eyes narrowed dangerously. "None of my bloody business?"

Killian turned away, cursing under his breath. Something occurred to him then, and he sidled around the corner, unbuckled his sword, and kicked it posthaste under the bed – he was damned lucky that her eyes weren't as sharp as they used to be, that she hadn't seen it. When he was more or less confident that he did not resemble a fugitive from justice, he reemerged and bestowed his (latest) unexpected guest with a dazzling smile. "How about a drop of brandy, and we can settle this like civilized – "

"No," Wendy interrupted. "I haven't time for your nonsense, Killian. As much as your leave of absence concerns me, that's not why I came here. It's far more important. _He's_ back."

There was a long, extremely fraught pause. Then Killian, feigning innocence, said, "He. . .?"

"You know perfectly bloody well who I'm talking about."

 _Bugger._ He glanced away, trying to collect his suddenly racing thoughts. "He's the reason we met in the first place, love. Perhaps it's him you could invite for the cozy chat, aye?"

"Funny. Always such a funny man." The old lady stared him down. "You never asked why I came there. Came back, I mean. To Neverland."

"Should I have?" He showed his teeth. "You were my prisoner at the time."

"So I was," Wendy said coolly. "Well then, I'll tell you. The shadow came back, Killian. After it took Baelfire in place of my brothers. It must have been that Bae wasn't the one it was looking for either, so it came back. It took John and Michael after all, and I. . . I wouldn't abandon them. So I jumped out the window after it and hung on, all that long terrible flight, while it tried to shake me off to my death in the streets of London far below. Somehow, it didn't succeed. We all made it to Neverland, the three of us. You know what happened next."

So he did. How the hapless Darlings had been captured by the Lost Boys, and how he, hearing that they were there – remembered Bae saying that they were his _true_ family – had promptly arranged for his crew to capture them right back. Bae was already gone by then, in hiding somewhere on the island. Killian had hoped to use the Darlings to smoke him out, but Bae hadn't taken the bait. Killian still didn't know when he had left Neverland, or what had befallen him after the Lost Ones had taken him. Sometimes he still dreamed of the boy. In the moments between sleeping and waking, Bae was his son, his own, had been raised by him and never wanted for any other father or family, and none of this had ever happened. _I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry._

Wendy was watching him. "Well?"

Killian blew out a breath. "Time makes no matter in Neverland," he reminded her. "It's been decades and decades here, but it might have only been a day there. No wonder the shadow's still on the prowl."

"Please." Her voice wavered. "It's after Jack. My great-grandson, Moira's boy. We're running out of ideas. Moira hasn't slept in almost a week; it won't come to the window as long as she's there. We need your help."

Killian tensed. He wondered which of them from so long ago, the feared pirate captain or the frightened but entranced English girl, would be more surprised at how this had ended up. _Almost certainly the former._ Still brokenhearted and furious in the raw aftermath of losing Bae, he'd been sleekly, lethally charming to the captive Darlings, half using them as live bait and half still hoping, like a bloody idiot, that they might choose to stay with him of their own accord. He'd played the father to John and Michael, but with far more vicious ulterior motives than before – if he could find Bae, he could force him to reveal the location of the Dark One's dagger, and hence skin himself a crocodile – and while they were tempted by the pirate's life, they and their sister had finally managed to escape, fly back to their own world. He'd never expected to see them again. Until the day he'd followed them there.

"Killian," Wendy said quietly. "You owe me."

So he did. So he bloody did. When he'd arrived in London, alone and penniless, their paths had crossed by accident – or perhaps not so much by accident. She remembered him at once. Knew exactly who he was. And taken him in, put a roof over his head, partly because she'd done the same for Bae and partly in a defiant attempt to show him that, contrary to what he'd said to her once, not all humans were essentially rotten to the core. Over seventy years since she'd last seen him, and it was fresh as if it had been merely a day.

And so, Captain Hook slowly became Killian Jones again. A complicated, standoffish relationship developed into one of warm mutual respect and a definite understanding. She'd paid his way through school, gotten him this job, done her utmost to encourage him to leave his all-consuming quest for blood, his dark alter ego, behind forever. She thought he'd changed. That he'd never be tempted again. That he was a good man.

He hadn't. He was. He wasn't. And he felt still worse for knowing it.

"Killian," she said again. "Please."

He stood unmoving. If the shadow _was_ hunting. . . it was still no business of his. He wasn't a bloody hero, and he was nobody's savior. _In fact, the furthest thing from_. "I don't think so."

"You're going to turn me down?" Her voice cracked. In that moment she was a young girl again, not a dignified, genteel, and fabulously wealthy great-grandmother who, no matter how old she was, was still a few hundred years younger than him. "Killian, I'm begging – "

He whirled on her. "That's not my name, pet."

Wendy went as white as a sheet. Without a word, she hauled off and slapped him.

Killian was so surprised that he didn't even attempt to catch the blow. But it was followed swiftly by rage – how _dare_ she _bloody_ – ? He was within fractions of pulling out the hook in his pocket and reminding her painfully of just who he was, but she caught his wrist. "You," she said, low and level. "You're turning into a monster."

"What if I always was?"

"No," Wendy said. "No, you weren't. You know I was attracted to you, as much as I was terrified by you, and not just for your pretty face. It was for seeing the man in you, the man you once were, and that you had the potential to one day be again. If you think I'm letting you waste that, after everything I have done in hopes of bringing him back, you're out of your _bloody_ mind."

She tilted her head back and stared at him, jaw clenched and eyes bright with unshed tears, and a slow sigh rattled through him as he carefully stepped away, unnerved by how close he had come to seriously hurting her. First Emma, and now – but no. He wasn't going to think about Emma. It was too wretchedly painful.

Silence stretched on. Ten, twenty, thirty heartbeats. More. How long could this shadow-destroying mission take? Not long, if he knew his business. He could do it, take revenge on another old foe that remained to be dealt with. Couldn't hurt to hone his skills for going after Gold. Couldn't hurt. _What do I really have to lose?_

In his mind's eye, Killian saw his beloved ship broken on the beach, gutted like a great leviathan torn from the deep. It was made of enchanted wood, and with a bit of fairy magic, it was his way out of Neverland. He had been sincere when he'd asked to go. When in return for his sacrifice of the _Jolly Roger_ and his vow never to turn into Hook again, the fairies had restored his hand and turned the haphazard collection of the _Roger's_ timbers into a portal.

 _My girl._ He dreamed of her even more than of Bae. Of running his hand along her helm, seeing her sails catch a wind, hearing her timbers speak to him as he lay awake on another hellish night, missing Milah too badly to sleep. _My girl._ He had loved her as only a captain could love his ship, more than he had loved any breathing soul, but he had lost her too. Left her in pieces on the deserted shore, and gone far, far away. Far beyond the second star to the right (or was it the left, leaving Neverland?) Far beyond his own memory.

_I can never go back._

He let out a slow, ragged breath.

"All right, lass," he said wearily. "All right."


	16. Chapter 16

Killian and Wendy left the very next morning, on the first red-eye out of Logan International. Killian was functioning at the barest minimum of sleep, images of last night's debacle still flashing gruesomely through his head, and he fully expected to be apprehended at customs control and pulled off for a friendly chat with the U.S. Border Patrol. Mercifully, however, such a sticky situation was avoided, although he did notice that they eyed up his Republic of Ireland passport quite a bit more than they did Wendy's UK one. She'd rustled up a full set of papers for him, all the oddments and scraps you had to have in this world to prove that you were who you said, identifying him as one Killian James Jones from Drogheda, County Louth. He didn't look IRA, he hoped, though if they had the faintest clue what he'd really been up to. . .

They didn't. They stamped the passport and told him that they hoped he'd enjoyed his visit to America and would return soon. They handed him back his boarding documents and waved him on. Apparently it was too bloody early for any such bullshite.

Killian and Wendy cooled their heels in the almost deserted waiting area until boarding for their flight was called. The one good thing about all this mess was that Wendy Moira Angela Darling did not, in any world, do such a plebeian thing as fly economy, and they were allowed to get on the plane first, taking their place in the squashy black leather first-class seats. Killian ruffled desultorily through the sky-shopping magazine – people in this world had a confounded passion for acquiring all the useless tat imaginable – and then shut it again. His heart was starting to pound, and they'd not even pushed back from the gate. He'd gotten used to almost everything here, but trusting his life to a pressurized steel shell hurtling at hundreds of miles an hour through the heavens, thousands and thousands of feet from the ground, was not one of them.

Wendy, sensing his distress, tried to put a hand on his elbow, but Killian jerked out from under her touch. He already regretted his decision. Thinking of how he was deliberately turning away from Gold was making his blood boil, doing nothing for his current heightened state of nerves, and he briefly thought he was about to be sick. But as such an action would utterly put paid to whatever slender scrap of dignity he had left, he managed, by sheer dint of will, to keep it down.

They pulled back, rolling down the taxiway, and Killian's knuckles clenched white as the big jet's engines rumbled beneath them. The usual interminable period of stopping and starting followed. Then they stoked up a good head of speed, faster and faster and faster, and launched into the dawn sky with a roar, the glittering checkerboard of Boston falling away below.

Killian reflexively crossed himself, astounded that he didn't burst into flames on the spot, and leaned back against the seat, hoping to sleep a little. He put on the headphones and shut the window shade, but rest eluded him. Every time he closed his eyes, he could hear Belle telling him that he was a teacher, not a killer, and see Emma's flaxen hair swinging loose from her hood, as bloody Ghost Rider swerved up from fucking nowhere to rescue her. _Rescue her from me._ He was a filthy rotten pirate, he'd done things he wasn't proud of to men and women alike, but the one thing he had never done, even as Hook, was to force himself sexually on an unwilling woman. He'd flirt and seduce and threaten, use his pretty face to buy him what he wanted, but he would never flat-out rape her. And while the context had been somewhat different, he'd thrown his sword at Emma. . . he hadn't known it was her, but it could have been any woman. . . that meant he was even _worse_ than who he'd been at the worst time of his long life. . .

Troubled and tormented, Killian dozed fitfully across the Atlantic. It was a seven-hour flight, but what with the time change, it would be six PM when they landed in London – if so, if it was coming, the shadow might turn up only a few hours later. He felt eminently unready for the task, as if he was about to burst at the seams, and when the flight attendant came by to distribute arrival forms, he snarled at her so badly that she fled almost in tears. Wendy gave him a look fit to strip the skin from his bones, and Killian sank back in his seat, rubbing his unshaven stubble and cursing himself. _The last thing you need is to get taken off the plane at Heathrow instead for being a disruptive passenger, you bloody idiot._

London began to appear below, out of the English fog. This late in the year, it was already well dark at six; by December, it would be dark at four-thirty. Despite himself, some sweet nostalgia pulled at Killian to see it again, inviting him to come home, to rest. Not that it would be so simple. For obvious reasons, Wendy had always been careful about socializing him with her family; none of them had any idea of his real identity, and most had never even met him. Jane and her daughters only knew him peripherally as one of Grandma Wendy's countless eccentric friends, which was why Killian himself hadn't recognized the junior Wendy, Emma's roommate, when he ran into her outside the dormitory. It was Wendy's elder sister Moira who was apparently in the current predicament, had a young son whom the shadow wanted, and if so. . .

They landed without incident, deplaned, and went to collect their baggage. Killian switched his phone back on, expecting to be inundated with a flood of accusatory messages, but there was still nothing. Apparently Tamara didn't yet know he'd scarpered out of the country, or else didn't care and had cooked up some other diabolical auxiliary plan. He wondered if it involved letting Belle out of the trailer; it was a bloody long time to be shut in there. _Not that I give a steaming shit,_ he reminded himself. But what if. . . what if it did involve going after Emma again? What if this time, without him to throw a monkey wrench in matters, it didn't fail?

Killian stopped dead in the middle of the bustling Heathrow arrivals terminal, causing an overworked porter wrangling two luggage carts to inform him in no uncertain Cockney terms to get his arse moving again. He was overcome by the sudden certainty that he was in the wrong place, that he should turn around and get back on the plane right now, fly back to Boston and not stop until he found where the mysterious man on the motorcycle had taken her. He didn't even know why he felt so bloody protective. Maybe it was in atonement for leaving her behind in the hospital. For nearly getting her killed by forgetting to take the poisoned turnover. For destroying her entire life anyway, by whatever his meddling had wrought with the curse.

Just then, Wendy tugged on his overcoat, jolting him back to reality. "Killian. Come."

He resented being summoned like a dog, but for once, he swallowed his pride and obeyed. They navigated through the chaos out to the passenger pick-up, and he was just wondering if she was actually going to condescend to take a coach, when a sleek black car pulled up at the curb, and a chauffeur's impeccably uniformed head popped out. "Ma'am?"

Wendy nodded regally, and the man jumped out and loaded up their bags before holding the door for them. Killian slid into the expansive backseat, reflecting wryly that of course Wendy had a driver. She too came from a different way of doing things, an older and more formal way; you still had to get smartened up for Sunday dinner at the Darling mansion, and heaven help you if you put your feet on the furniture or checked your mobile while she was talking to you. He shifted nervously, already dreading this. He couldn't stop looking back at Heathrow as they left.

It was still the peak of London rush hour, and the driver spent as much time on the horn as he did on the brakes. At last, however, they turned into the exclusive enclave of Kensington Gardens, well-kept and fabulously expensive old row houses lining the treed streets, and pulled up before the stateliest and most expensive one at the end, windows glowing in the cold autumn night. The driver offloaded them and their possessions, then made a discreet exit.

Seeing nothing for it, Killian offered Wendy his arm, and they climbed the front steps and rang the bell. This seemed to him a queer custom to observe at one's own home, but then, he did not have a butler to answer the door, solicitously greet them, take their coats, and offer them a hot toddy to drink, then show them down the hall to the sitting room at the rear. An older woman, a younger woman, and a boy of perhaps five were waiting. _Jane, Moira, and Jack._

"Mother!" Jane sprang to her feet and hugged Wendy tightly. "Thank God you're back, are you sure the traveling wasn't too much for you? If you'd told me who, I would have gone for you, you didn't have to – "

"Stop fretting, dear." Wendy gently but firmly disentangled herself from her daughter's embrace. "I did have to be the one to go, in fact, and I'm glad I did. Moira, love, get some sleep. We've someone else to manage it now."

The younger woman, eyes exhausted and bloodshot, nodded gratefully. But she still shot a curious look at Killian, skulking behind the davenport. "That's your. . . friend, Grandmama?"

"Indeed." Wendy beckoned to him. In an undertone, she said, "Get your sword."

 _Rest for the weary for Moira, but none for me._ Still, Killian nodded, then went to fetch it from his suitcase. Finding _that_ in there would certainly have done nothing to convince the authorities of his status as a sane, well-adjusted individual, especially if they'd drawn the blade and discovered that it was lethally sharp, but it was undisturbed. He buckled it around his waist and prepared to head up to the nursery, when he felt another tug on his sleeve. "Are you a pirate?"

He glanced down with a start and beheld young Jack, Wendy's great-grandson, the very one the shadow was supposedly after. "What makes you ask, lad?"

"You look like one." Jack trotted to keep up as Killian strode for the stairs. "And Grandma Wendy is _the_ Wendy, you know. The real one. Mama says it was just a story that Mr. Barrie made up for her, but I don't think so."

 _Smart boy._ Killian raised an eyebrow and then, as Jack made to follow him, threw out an arm. "No. Your mother wouldn't want you coming up here with me."

Jack gave him a stubborn look. "I have to. The shadow won't come if it thinks I'm not here. And it has to come, so you can kill it."

Something about the lad's simple, straightforward faith in him unexpectedly touched Killian's blackened heart. He paused, then nodded, leading the way up to the dark third floor, following the faint cold breeze through the creaking Victorian corridors. Down to the end, to the Darling nursery door, and inside to the room itself at last.

The first thing he saw was the great picture window, and the ship – the _pirate_ ship – worked in stained glass in the arch. He'd been utterly unprepared to see it, and it hit him so hard that he stumbled to a halt, assailed with grief for his lost _Roger._ The strangler's fingers around his heart were not loosened by the following realization that Bae had lived here, once upon a time and long ago. Had thought _this_ was his home, not the one Killian had tried to offer him, begged to offer him. Everything about this place was ghosts, and how bloody strange it was that he should finally be standing here, so old and yet still so young. That it should be him they were looking to, the hero to make the darkness end, the second star to the right once more shine out among the night sky.

Jack tugged at his hand. "Are you all right, Mr. Pirate?"

Despite himself, Killian choked on a laugh. "My name's Killian, lad."

"That's a funny name."

"It's Irish."

"Oh." Jack considered. "Grandpa Seamus is Irish."

"So he is," Killian allowed. Jane's husband, the professor who'd been responsible for getting him into Trinity, and thus one of the few members of the Darling family he'd met face to face. "Well, lad, what time does this shadow of yours tend to show up?"

"Late." Jack eyed the window. "We'll have to wait. Can you tell me a story?"

"I. . . I'm not much of a storytelling sort."

"I think you are. Come on." Jack scrambled up on the bed nearest the window, plainly expecting Killian to join him, and after a moment of hesitation, he did. The boy curled up next to him, yawned, and put his small head on the pirate's shoulder, something that almost stopped Killian's heart. Was this what it would have been like, if Bae had stayed? Would he still have been young enough to want bedtime stories? _Would he ever have trusted me enough to draw so near?_

A sweet, painful spasm took hold of Killian, so hard that he had to surreptitiously knuckle tears out of his eyes. Then he settled back with a sigh, stretching his long legs, and made sure that his sword was still readily to hand. Seeing that it was, before he had time to talk himself out of it, he launched into a story about Captain Hook, Lost Boys, fairies, and mermaids.

Jack listened raptly, constantly interrupting to ask questions, and Killian finally admonished him to shut up and listen. He went on, enjoying himself more and more, altering the darker details to comic ones, casting Hook as the hero of the tale until when he was ambushed and captured, Jack sat with huge eyes and hands over his mouth until the fairies freed him. The deep, low, lilting sound of Killian's voice filled the room, lulling them both, until he too began to drift off with Jack's head nestled into his chest. It was a tearingly painful and tender moment, one he had never expected, and it was making him start to crack, eating away at his grim resolve like the tide scouring a sandbank. Until he had slipped into that place between waking and sleeping, the place where dreams lived, where he would always love. . .

It was then, as if from far away, he heard the window start to rattle.

Killian's eyes jerked open. He had no idea how long he had been asleep, but he knew it was very late, and Jack was slumbering peacefully against him. He gently pushed the boy off and sat up, tense and alert. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, hand closing around the hilt of his sword. He wasn't entirely sure that he hadn't imagined that first rattle, but –

No. He hadn't. There it was again. And there _was_ something at the window. Something dark and boy-shaped, with burning white eyes.

Killian drew his sword, with a soft ringing rasp, as the latch on the window rattled again. All the lights were out, so he couldn't be sure, but he had a strange impression that the shadow was. . . different. Shaped to a different body, in a different way than before. As if someone else, someone new, was controlling it. Perhaps the Lost Boys. . . or perhaps not. _Is there a new Pan?_

That was a bloody horrifying thought. For as long as Killian had lived in Neverland, there had been no real Pan. Only the shadow, and that was bad enough. But if the shadow had finally found the boy it was looking for, why in hell was it back here, seemingly desirous of kidnapping Jack and hauling him off as it had done to countless lads over the years? Out of simple malice, out of some old memory that it had come to this window before, or. . . or bloody what? Even Killian's celebrated ingenuity was failing him. Yet it hit him then, in that moment, that something was very, very wrong.

The latch rattled one more time. The window gave. And the shadow issued through in a dark, lithe stream. Not toward Jack, sleeping unguarded on the bed and thus seemingly ripe for easy picking – but straight at Killian.

He barely got his sword up in time, slashing at it. The shadow veered away, startled, but quickly recollected itself and lunged back, and Killian felt his ears pop as if he'd just dropped a hundred stories in an elevator, a foul cold miasma engulfing him and making him gag as he cut and hacked, ribboning his blade through the trailing smoky limbs. Somehow, horribly, he was starting to understand. _It was never after Jack at all. It set the trap, and Wendy and the rest walked right into it. It is after. . . me._

How or why, he had no idea, and nor did he have time to wonder. He ducked and rolled, battling it back with all his strength, as he caught a glimpse of Jack sitting bolt upright and staring with eyes the size of golf balls. But any distraction could well prove fatal, and he gritted his teeth and braced with both hands, feeling a shadowy supernal blade shriek against his own. He rolled to one side as it lacerated the carpet to the left of his head, then the other way as it lacerated the right. _Fire._ Fell creatures like this, wraith or shadow, could never stand the living kiss of flame.

Unfortunately, there _was_ no fire, and no immediately obvious way of acquiring any. Killian fought to his feet, the shadow blade and the steel flashing out, entangling, and drawing back, as he and the monster circled each other, locked in the more-than-mortal combat. "Jack," he called. "Jack, get me some matches. Candles. A torch. Anything."

The lad stared. "I – I – "

" _Now!"_ Killian roared, as the shadow lunged at him, and he could feel the coldness as the blade scraped down his own, inches from his heart. He managed to hold it away long enough for Jack to scamper to the nursery door, and could only pray desperately that the uproar woke the rest of the house in time. It had been too long since he'd used a sword in deadly earnest, fought for his life this fiercely – the last time, in fact, might well have been in that ill-fated duel against the crocodile – and he honestly did not know if he could fend the bloody shadow off for much longer. Nor did he intend to make an end like this. Not here. Not yet.

A few more fractured, desperate moments blurred past, when all Killian was aware of was the strain in his arms and the rasping of his breath in his ears, as he and the shadow clashed like – well, like Hook and Pan, mortal enemies, _it's Hook or me this time._ Then he heard banging at the door, saw shapes looming up, saw Jane with some sort of lighter in hand – then a gust of flame, the shadow recoiling back against the ceiling, and then shooting out of the window hard enough to rattle all the glass in the pane like an earthquake. Killian collapsed back on the floor, gasping.

Wendy knelt at his side. "Are you all right?"

"Did I kill it?" Jane demanded.

Killian pushed himself up on an elbow. "No," he managed. "Only made it angry."

Wendy and her daughter exchanged worried looks. They were about to say something else, but he interrupted. "Don't worry. I don't think it'll be coming back here. It wasn't your lad it was after."

That furtherly befuddled them, but he ignored them. His head was reeling. Bloody _hell,_ what was he going to do? The shadow had been after _him._ Now that he'd exposed himself to it, now that it knew he was alive, where to find him. . . he had a sinking feeling that he'd just played directly into its hands (such as they were). Still worse, it made him realize that he couldn't go back and carry out whatever idiotic notion he might have cherished about finding Emma and trying to keep her safe – from Tamara, from the man on the motorcycle, or whoever else might be after her. How on bloody earth was he supposed to protect her, if he had this. . . this _thing_ after him? As if he wasn't enough of a danger on his own, now he'd bring a murderous shadow too.

Killian sat motionless, wrestling with his conscience. He reminded himself that he'd been planning to leave Boston for good in the first place, and this might be an extremely twisted blessing in disguise. If he now had a very compelling reason to stay away, if he couldn't return without bringing death with him, he could possibly refrain from wreaking any more havoc and misery on her life. Problem bloody solved. At least on that front.

But how could he give up on his revenge? Give up on the promise of seeing Gold dead at his feet? After so long, after so much?

 _The crocodile will keep,_ Killian reminded himself. After a few centuries, he wasn't in danger of abruptly keeling over one day, and if worse came to worse, he could stand to wait two more years – what was that now? Nothing, really. Just long enough for Emma to graduate and move away, so she'd no longer be in the crossfire when he went after Storybrooke. It was possible she didn't even remember the place, but better to be sure.

 _Look at you, being so bloody sentimental._ How was it that after so long being determinedly alone, of imperviously repelling any woman who even tried to get close to him, he was suddenly rendered such a fool, such a concerned and conscientious soul? Deciding to delay his revenge long enough to keep her safe, to not return to Boston in case the shadow hurt her? No matter how many times he told himself that he felt nothing for the young woman, he just as swiftly proved himself a liar. He didn't know what it was, but something about Emma Nolan had captivated him, dangerously allured him. It was like coming up for air after three hundred years of a dive so deep that he had forgotten even the memory of light. She _meant_ something, she was worth saving, and as rotten a bastard as he was, at least he knew that. That somehow, if he destroyed her as he destroyed everything else he touched, he'd never be able to forgive himself. _And what are you talking about, if? You already fucking have._

Aye, she might be safe for good if he left. But who then would defend her from Tamara?

 _Emma put the bitch on her back the last time they faced off,_ Killian reasoned. _Could be she doesn't need my help, or anyone's. Could be she's plenty strong enough on her own._

Wendy and Jane were still staring at him. Slowly, badly, he got to his feet, feeling like a poorly strung puppet. He had no idea what came next, he realized. Where he'd go or what he'd do. But he couldn't stay here either, and put them in danger as well. It might take the shadow quite a while to track him, if he got out of here as fast as possible, and that would buy him some time to come up with a proper plan. Figure out who was controlling it, and how to kill it. It was the least he could do. And then, when Emma was safely out of the way and the time was ripe, he could go back and do the last thing in his miserable bloody life that absolutely had to be done.

It hurt like hell. But there was no alternative.

Killian coughed. "Wendy," he said hoarsely. "Say I was to stay in England a while. Would you happen to know of any available teaching posts?"

She blinked at him. "You. . . you'd _stay?"_

"Aye." He coughed again. "Spare me the inquisition. Would you?"

"I. . . yes. As it so happens, I have a friend or several at Oxford, and they're in need of a history tutor at Wadham College. Killian, are you sure you'd – "

"Perfect." He cut her off. "Can you phone them in the morning and tell them I'd like the job?"

"You'd leave Boston? You just got the post there! Killian, I don't understand. You should – "

"Wendy." His voice was low in his throat, almost a growl. "I've just fought a shadow on your family's behalf, nearly died for my trouble, and am trying to do whatever I can not to turn back into him, as you made me promise. I'm not going to bloody argue about this. Just phone them."

She looked at him a long moment, then nodded. "All right," she said softly. "In the morning."

* * *

Not even twenty-four hours after he'd arrived in England, Killian Jones was aboard the train from London Paddington to Oxford, with one suitcase full of possessions and a head full of questions. He hadn't yet had the interview at Wadham, but that was only a formality, an ambassador presenting his credentials; Wendy's was a name to conjure with, and they were looking to replace the tutor who'd been sacked as quickly as possible. This time, he told himself, he was going to toe the bloody line so precisely as to not put even a smudge out of place. A second chance was the last thing he deserved, but somehow he had one, and he had to keep this job long enough for Emma to graduate and leave Boston. He'd live demurely as a schoolmarm if need be.

They rolled north through the green English lowlands, and it was midmorning by the time they arrived in Oxford. Killian decided to walk from the train station instead of catching a black cab. He set off up toward the city center, losing himself among the flocks of students, up the narrow wynds to the intersection of St. Giles' and Cornmarket, past the bustling pedestrian thoroughfare and onto Broad Street. He passed Blackwell's, the Sheldonian Theatre, and the distinctive gothic spires of the Bodleian Library, then hung a smart left onto Parks Road, from which it was only a few steps to Wadham. He presented himself at the porter's lodge, received admittance, and headed through into the main quad, around to the left and the fellows' garden, where he'd been told to meet the head tutor. An hour later, he had the job.

This secured, Killian supposed grimly that he had to do the bloody business of breaking ties to Boston, but he couldn't quite bring himself to it. Yet he had to at least find a place to stay for the night, and then get to the business of finding a proper flat – which in Oxford was liable to cost an arm and a leg, but he'd deal with that when he had to. So he took the bus out to Iffley Road and rented a room at one of the bed and breakfasts, left his things, and returned to the History Library to prepare himself for his lessons tomorrow. Apparently it was in both feet first.

He felt obliquely better as he whiled the afternoon away among the books. More like a man again, not a monster, and hoped that he might have, for the first time in his godforsaken life, made the right decision. He sent emails to his new students introducing himself, and worked steadily until five PM, when he decided to pack it up and head to a pub for supper.

Pulling his coat up and looping his scarf around his neck, he stepped out into the evening. It had been raining, as usual, but there was a clearing in the west, and a breath of flame touched the low clouds. All the stone was dark with the damp, spidered ironwork clutching a gasp of pale sky. Glowing windows reflected on the sidewalks, towers and cupolas painted out of existence in the dusk, their bells calling clear and distant. Lampposts casting pale oases of glow on the cobbles, the shadows turning long. Buses and bicycles swept by, the scurrying maze of people held up jackets and shopping bags against the spray. Ancient colleges and modern shops, the essential and enticing contrasts of Oxford. He was very glad to be home.

* * *

Emma Swan staggered through the rest of the week like a zombie. After the attempted mugging and then the crazy encounter with August W. Booth, she was afraid to leave the dorm room at all, but forced herself to stick to her routine as if nothing was wrong. She hadn't even gone to get her leg looked at by a doctor, for fear of the awkward questions that might follow, and dosed it stubbornly with antibiotic ointment and butterfly bandages until it began to stitch up. It would leave an ugly scar, but if that was all, she was lucky.

However, there was only so much pretending that it hadn't happened that she could do. She made sure to call Jack and inform her that she wanted to file a restraining order, and baffled the attorney completely by saying that it wasn't against Neal, but against this mysterious August character. This in turn led to a multitude of the sort of questions she'd hoped to avoid, but Jack finally agreed to take care of it. This made Emma feel a bit better, but only a bit.

She survived midterms, barely. Knowing that her continued enrollment at BC depended on not flunking any of them, she set up camp in the library for two days beforehand and managed to pull a handful of B's and one A-minus, to her vast surprise. Then it was time for something even worse. Despite everything, Jack hadn't managed to persuade the state to drop the charges against her without trial, and she had her first court appearance tomorrow.

Emma didn't sleep a wink the night before, and dragged herself out of bed feeling utterly sick, to shower and dress and do her best to resemble an innocent, wrongly accused young woman. Jack had told her to play up the naïve schoolgirl angle, so she put her hair in two braids and wore her black hipster glasses, a sweater and plaid skirt and boots. Then she stood outside, shivering, until the attorney's Volvo pulled up.

They didn't talk much on the way downtown to the courthouse, but Jack put a steadying hand on her arm as they stepped out. "It's going to be all right, Emma. Okay? There's really no evidence against you that's admissible in court, and the reason they took this to trial in the first place is because Spencer is a giant bag of dicks who likes to ruin people's lives. But one more time, before we go in there, I'm going to ask you. If you agree to testify against Neal, we can end this nice and easy. What do you say? Can you do that?"

Emma brushed her hand across her eyes. "I don't want to," she whispered.

"Why not?"

"I. . . I want him to come back." She turned away. "He. . . I guess he was kind of a loser, but he was the only person who was ever there for me. He. . . I just. . . if I wait, maybe he'll. . ."

"Sweetie," Jack said. "I get that you're young, that you've just had your heart broken, but you've got to listen to me. Your boy isn't coming back, all right? He's gone. Did a bunk. He framed you for his crime and ran. You owe him a big fat fucking nothing, okay? You can do so much better. Guys who really love you don't do what Neal did. I don't care what his excuse was. He can shove it. Now. Will you?"

Emma hesitated, agonizing. But if nothing else, her bizarre encounter with August had showed her that she could fight back, that she didn't have to take it, that if she was going to survive, she had to cut the dead weight and start to swim. Where would she have gotten if she let those two nutcases mug her? Why did she owe anyone anything? They'd all showed how much they cared for her. Every single one of them.

Well. Fine then. Jack was right.

_Fuck them._

"Okay," she said, barely audibly. So she swallowed and said it again, louder. "Okay. I will."

* * *

Two hours later, she was walking down the courthouse steps, cleared of all charges.

Emma felt like she was floating, half in a dream. Something this good had no right to happen to her, no reason. Well, she wasn't _entirely_ off the hook; since she'd known about the pot operation and done nothing to report it, she'd been sentenced to a fairly stiff fine and 100 hours of community service. But there was no jail time, it wasn't going on her permanent record, and Jack was almost beside herself with glee at sticking it so resoundingly to Spencer, who'd slunk out with his tail between his legs, patently in disgrace and stewing on a proper revenge. "We should celebrate, hon! This is huge! But wait, you're not 21, are you?"

"No," Emma admitted. She wasn't about to get busted with a fake ID just minutes after getting out of trouble, and despite everything, she couldn't feel happy. Nothing had really changed, not ultimately. "I think I'd just like to go home."

Jack shot her a curious look, but consented to drive her back to campus. As Emma was climbing out of the Volvo, the lawyer called, "I'm still looking for your parents, you know."

"You're wasting your time." Emma swung her purse onto her arm.

"Am I? I'm not so sure about that. I've got a good contact, think this lead is a strong one. Can we set up a meeting? Tamara's very interested in working this out."

"Tamara?"

"Lady who's been doing some digging for me. She thinks she might know where to find them."

Emma hesitated again. The name was faintly familiar from somewhere, but she couldn't place it, and her heart had sped up several notches. "I. . . Jack, please don't play with me. My parents abandoned me twenty years ago. They've had plenty of chances to come looking. They haven't."

"What if they haven't been able to?"

"Why not?"

"You'll have to ask Tamara. She's the mastermind." Jack shrugged. "When do you have some time free in your schedule?"

"This is crazy, I – "

"Just trust me. Look what happened when you listened to me this morning, huh?"

"Fine." Expelling an aggravated sigh through her teeth, Emma pulled out her day planner and flipped it open, then frowned. "Yeah, I don't really have any time until Thanksgiving break. That's about two weeks from now."

"Thanksgiving break, then. Pencil it in."

Emma started to do so, then stopped. "What's in this for you?"

"You're my client. You could use someone in your corner. And what's better, sitting around and never looking for your parents, or at least turning over some rocks and seeing what we find?"

"If you say so," Emma muttered, making a note of it. She thanked Jack, then watched her go again, before heading inside to her dorm. She was completely exhausted, so much that she could barely stand upright, and despite the fact that it was only early afternoon, crawled into bed. Sleep was already reaching for her, dragging her under.

She dreamed of a boy. A strangely familiar boy, a boy who was hers, the baby in her arms grown up to a kid with a mop of brown hair and freckles and a lopsided grin that was Neal to the life, a kid who was too smart for his own good, a kid who drove her nuts, the best kid in the world. She knew his name, in the dream, and reached for him, desperate to have him back, to protect him, to tell him that she hadn't lost him after all. But he receded from her with every step, growing fainter and farther away, his voice echoing back to her as she screamed and ran after him, until the light had died and when she looked for him, all she saw was a shadow.

* * *

The two weeks flew by. Emma was on far more pins and needles than she pretended at the prospect of actually meeting someone who might know something about her parents, but that plan took an unexpected detour a few days beforehand. Wendy informed her that she was going home to London for the break – they didn't have Thanksgiving in England, of course, so it would be an excuse for a week of shopping and museum-hopping and partying and otherwise thoroughly enjoying themselves – and she was insistent that Emma come along. "You need to celebrate _somehow,_ it's been such a shitty semester for you! And now that you're not an accused felon anymore and it won't look like you're trying to flee the country. . . come on. Please?"

"I don't know." Emma frowned. "Jack really wants me to meet this Tamara chick."

"Meet her when you get back. You need a vacation like nobody's business."

Emma hesitated. She had to admit that she was tempted by the possibility – well, who wouldn't be? All-expenses-paid holiday to London, yes please. But her new philosophy of looking out only for herself made her sure that there was some kind of hidden string attached, and she was fully cognizant of the fact that this would almost certainly involve a repeat encounter with Wendy's formidable namesake grandmother. The old lady had scared her enough the first time, she didn't really want to go through it again. But that was a lame-sauce excuse for turning this down, and what else was she going to do? Sit in the dorm and eat ramen?

"Okay," she ventured. "If you're sure."

"Of course I'm sure!" Wendy scoffed. "This will be the best, you'll see. Maybe you'll actually smile for the first time all year."

Emma wondered what that would be like. She couldn't even imagine it. But she let Wendy book the extra plane ticket, and sent a text to Jack informing her that the meeting with Tamara would have to be rescheduled due to her having accepted a trip to London instead. Then she finished up the rest of the week in an excited haze, and headed to the airport with Wendy on Friday evening.

They boarded, settled into their seats, and took off. It was an overnight flight; they'd be arriving in England on Saturday morning, and Wendy was already on about everything she wanted to take Emma to – they'd go to Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, the Tower, Harrod's, the West End for a show, and then up to Oxford to visit her loads of schoolfriends there. Most of them were either perplexed or jealous that she'd gone to the States for university, but Wendy confided that she'd wanted to get away. Do her own thing. Trod her own path.

Emma mumbled agreement, nodding off against the cushioned headrest as the plane sped into the night. She was drifting into the place between sleeping and waking, where dreams lived and time stopped, and –

The boy was there again. Her boy. Waiting for her.

The shadow.


	17. Chapter 17

A riot of screeching seagulls swarmed in on the last few bites of the sausage roll, ripping and tearing and squabbling, as Emma jerked her hand away and stared at Wendy in alarm. The birds had come swooping in off the Thames, apparently by laser-calibrated radar, the instant she tossed out the scraps; they'd just finished their exploration of the Tower of London, viewed the Crown Jewels and the head-chopping accessories and the ravens on the lawn, heard about Anne Boleyn's ghost, seen the original White Tower that William the Conqueror had built, and otherwise indulged Emma's jonesing for medieval history. Wendy said it was all a bit touristy and apologized repeatedly, but her words fell on deaf ears. Emma was happy for the first time in what felt like years, and her evident delight had not gone unnoticed. Wendy had said she'd gladly pay the exorbitant admission fee again if it put that kind of a smile on her face.

They had arrived in London yesterday morning, and while the first day had been mostly spent recovering from the jetlag, they'd managed to get out for dinner and a show, then bounced up again bright and early to hit up Westminster. Emma had wandered around the ancient abbey with her jaw in a permanent state of suspension, walking on the graves of some of the most famous authors, soldiers, royalty, and general luminaries ever, and had to be extracted by Wendy so they could make it to the Tower in time. After lunch, they were going to take the coach service up to Oxford, where they'd spend a few days at least in the general vicinity of Wendy's friends. Michaelmas Term ended in the first week of December, so they'd all be scrambling to finish up tutorials and exams, but they all wanted to see her and were willing to make the sacrifice.

"Sorry to make you leave so early, but you'll have to come back at Christmas," Wendy said now, shooing off the seagulls and heading for the riverside walk that led to the Tower Hill Tube station. Her grandmother might have private drivers, a Kensington Gardens mansion, and a multimillion-pound fortune, but both of the young women were far more comfortable beetling around inconspicuously on public transport. Emma had felt horrendously out of place at said mansion last night, with its Victorian décor, crystal chandeliers, and white-gloved butlers, and was far more comfortable at the idea of sleeping in some student flat in Oxford. She was of course grateful to the family for hosting her in such style, but Grandma Wendy unnerved her. A lot.

"Christmas?" That seemed like an eternity to Emma. She couldn't even wrap her head around it. "Are you sure?"

"Of course. If for whatever reason, Jack can't find your parents by then, you'll need a place to go, won't you? Nobody should have to spend the holidays alone."

Emma was quiet, her blonde ponytail streaming in the cold November wind. At last, as they were trotting into the station, she said, "Wendy. . . you _really_ think that after twenty years, even Jack can just snap her fingers and find these deadbeats who left me on the side of a road and booked it? I just don't see how that's – "

Wendy looked at her strangely. "Emma, I know things have been rough for you since the coma, and I understand. But your parents aren't deadbeats, and they definitely exist. I've _met_ them."

Emma stopped short at the turnstile, her Oyster card frozen in her fingers. "Get out."

"No, seriously. I know you can't remember them, and I'm sorry. But your dad helped you move in to start the term. His name is David Nolan, he's tall and quite fit for a dad – I mean that in a non-perverted way, I promise – he's got blue eyes and he works at an animal shelter. Your mum is named Mary Margaret, she's a primary-school teacher, she's short and has black hair in a bob-cut." Wendy looked at her encouragingly, clearly hoping that this had sparked a rush of memories. "Any of that sound familiar?"

"No," Emma said through frozen lips, tapping her card and pushing through the turnstile. "Are you even serious right now?"

"Why would I lie about this?"

"They already ran the address through, when I was leaving the hospital and there was that big clusterfuck with the health insurance. Storybrooke, Maine, is not a real place, but it's even worse if these people are. Then they left me behind, again."

"Sweetheart, no," Wendy said, seeing her face. "I didn't mean that, I don't think that's what happened, I swear. But I was just saying that if for some reason Jack can't find them, you're always welcome to come to our house."

"Why?" Emma pulled her scarf tighter as they stepped onto the platform. She hadn't meant to be so blunt, but she couldn't help herself. "I just. . . why are you spending so much money on me and being so nice and. . . taking care of me? I don't understand. What do you want?"

"As you can likely tell, we've got plenty of money for spending," Wendy said wryly. "But. . . Emma, I'm your _friend,_ I don't want anything from you. And taking in lost boys, or lost girls, is a bit of a Darling family tradition. Granny always says that we don't have this much just to sit on it and hoard it, and I grew up seeing her take care of people. It's just what we do."

Emma mulled this over, not sure what to make of it. In her experience, if something looked too good to be true, it always was. But as the subway rattled into the station, and the voice droned at them to mind the gap, something else occurred to her. "I'm sorry, did you say _Darling?"_

"Yes, of course." Wendy was plainly more puzzled than ever. "What?"

"Seriously, so your grandmother is named Wendy Darling? I thought it was Henley."

"That's her married name. Edward Henley, my grandfather, he's been dead for quite a while now. But. . .yes."

"Get out," Emma said again. "So I guess your grandma is like the little girl that Lewis Carroll wrote _Alice in Wonderland_ for, right? Except only with J.M. Barrie and _Peter Pan?_ " Suddenly, the fact that Wendy knew everyone of consequence in London literary circles was making a great deal of sense. And she did have to admit that the house looked exactly the part. There was a nursery with a window that opened to the starry sky, a stained-glass window worked with a pirate ship, and the old lady had been insistent about making sure it was closed at night. And Emma _had_ had that dream again about the boy-shadow coming to her, tapping softly on the pane. She'd woken and sat bolt upright, convinced that she had to go and let him in, but when she padded upstairs in her bare feet and crept into the nursery, there was nothing at all at the window and she felt stupid for having believed. Maybe the place was haunted. It would figure.

"Sort of," Wendy said, as the doors closed and the train rolled out. "It's complicated."

Emma shrugged, figuring that some sordid family history lay behind this, and that if she didn't want Wendy to pry into hers, it seemed rude to do so in return. But some unexpected memory was in fact nipping at her, flitting maddeningly just out of reach. She had the weirdest feeling that sometime fairly recently, she'd met somebody else who thought they were associated with that whole story, but who it was and what they'd said were complete blanks. She was probably making it up anyway, one of the strange short-circuits of her post-coma brain, and didn't see the need to spend much time on it. She leaned back in her seat, clutching her bag.

It was only a few stops from Tower Hill to London Victoria station, where they could catch the bus to Oxford (somewhat confusingly also named the Tube) and they were soon aboard; since it was only early afternoon, city traffic was moving at a reasonable pace. Emma dozed, headphones in, as they left London behind. She was still jet-lagged, and between her late night at the show and then her odd dream about the shadow-boy, she hadn't gotten much sleep. At this rate, she'd need a vacation after her vacation, but she definitely hadn't come to sit and stare at the wall, which she'd done far too much of back in Boston. The fact that nobody knew her here, except of course for Wendy, meant that she didn't have to sneak around and worry about who might see her, which had largely kept her confined to the dorm for the past several weeks. It was invigorating to pretend to have a life again, but she didn't want to get too used to it. This was just make-believe, for a few more days. Then she'd have to go back to the status quo.

It was an hour and change to Oxford, and when she opened her eyes from what had deepened into a full-fledged catnap, they were rolling into the city center, past innumerable gothic spires and quaint stone buildings that had her head turning on a pivot as she tried to take them all in. They got off the bus at the end of High Street, at the intersection with St. Aldates' and Cornmarket, and Wendy checked her phone. As it was still only midafternoon, her friends were in tutorial or at the library, feverishly slaving to finish an essay, and thus they had some time to kill before meeting them that evening. "Come on. Let's go to the Covered Market."

Emma trailed obediently at her heels as they headed into the market, which was truly a world unto itself. It was crammed with stalls for butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, coffee shops, florists, fishmongers, cheesemongers, chocolatiers, jewelers, gifts and knickknacks, fabrics, clothes, furniture, and more, attractively roofed over with white wooden beams and humming with a throng of students, tourists, locals, and distracted eccentrics wandering along with their noses in books (this was a favorite pastime in Oxford at any time or place, up to and including while riding bicycles). Emma stared, but before she had time to recover, Wendy stuffed a £50 note into her hand and said, "Enjoy yourself. We'll meet back here at five, all right?"

Emma opened her mouth to protest, but Wendy had already vanished. So Emma shrugged again, supposed that if there was no more pressing use for fifty pounds then why not, and headed into the labyrinth.

She only window-shopped at first, driven by her old instinct that told her not to spend the money; she didn't know if there would be any tomorrow. She was tempted by a beautiful batik skirt, but reminded herself that she wasn't the kind of girl who wore skirts. A framed antique print of the city likewise failed to pass muster; too impractical. Almost everything she wanted, she immediately came up with a good reason not to buy, but it felt a bit crass to just hand the money back to Wendy at the end of the afternoon and tell her that she was too good for it. There had to be _something_ ; even it wasn't quite Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, there were still plenty of options.

Despite herself, however, Emma had almost given up when she spotted a little jewelry stand crammed in a dark corner, between a butcher's block featuring whole pigs hanging upside down from meat hooks and a woodworker's shop filled with hand-carved items suitable to display splendidly as a family keepsake, such as a faux Elizabethan globe, a Pinocchio puppet, and a bunch of model ships. Remembering the one in the Darling nursery window, she was oddly tempted, but shook her head and angled for the jewelry instead.

The pieces were sterling silver, not nickel-plated cheap stuff, and Emma browsed through a tray of rings, encouraged by the enthusiastic and incomprehensible Scottish proprietor, until she found one she liked. It was simple, set with a pretty green stone, and it fit perfectly on her little finger. According to the hand-calligraphed card that went with it, it was some kind of traditional talisman for true love, which was about what you'd expect for a kitschy overpriced jewelry shop. It was marked at £60, but he agreed to sell it to her for £45, with a comment about how the look in her eyes made him think she could use some love in her life. At least, she _thought_ that was what he said; with the Glaswegian burr, it could have been something else entirely.

Emma paid him, took her £5 in change, and slipped the ring onto her finger. A glance at her watch revealed that she still had forty minutes to waste, so she decided to investigate the gourmet chocolate shop she'd seen somewhere along the way, wondering if she'd need a map to find it again. So she thanked the proprietor again, stepped out of the stand, and –

She hadn't even seen the man exiting the woodworker's shop across the way, and hence walked slap bang into him, knocking the tissue-wrapped parcel clean out of his hands. It hit the floor with a horrible crunch that definitely sounded like something fragile breaking, and she dove after it, mortified. "Oh – oh my God, I'm sorry, I am _so_ sorry, I didn't even see you, I just – "

"Couldn't look where you were bloody going, could you?" he snapped. "Eh?"

"I – I just. . ." Emma, hideously humiliated, kept her head down, trying to gather both herself and the broken object; it appeared to be one of the model ships she'd just been looking at. "Sir. . . I'll pay to replace it, or – " _With what money?_ She'd have to bum more off Wendy. Maybe she should just run back and return the ring, or else –

Just then, she caught a confused glimpse of him, and felt her heart vault into her throat. If her life was a romantic comedy, the fact that she'd literally crashed into a drop-dead gorgeous stranger mere moments after buying something cheesy supposed to help her find true love would end up being extremely significant, but as it wasn't, not so much. She had to give the universe credit for some slick timing, but the guy didn't look at all amused. Older than her, but not old; a doctoral student, maybe, or a junior tutor. As noted, a knockout. Navy sport coat and tie, pressed slacks, shined shoes, dark tousled hair and model-worthy stubble, burning blue eyes and –

His hand. His left hand. He was holding it out imperiously, clearly in anticipation of her handing back his damaged property, and there was a thick scar encircling the wrist, something that jarred some deep recess of her memory. As always, she couldn't place it, but it made her confusedly rock back on her heels and stare up into his face. "Excuse me. . . do I know you?"

He opened his mouth, about to fire off some sarcastic dismissal, then got a good look at her; the light in this corner of the market wasn't the best, and he hadn't before. Whatever he _had_ been going to say made a faint whistling noise as it flew away. He looked completely stunned.

"I. . . I'm sorry." Emma gathered up the broken model ship and held it out like a peace offering. "I just. . . thought I knew you from somewhere. Here, let's go pay for this, or return it, or get it fixed or whatever."

He was still staring at her. "I. . . lass, I. . . you don't have to do that."

"Hey, no, I broke it, didn't I?" She frowned. "What? Is there something on my face?"

"No, I just. . ." He cleared his throat and turned away, surreptitiously putting a hand on the wall to steady himself. "I'll. . . take care of it. Aye. Why don't you. . . just forget you saw me."

"I don't understand." She stepped closer, wincing as her bad leg cramped; she wasn't going to be able to walk around on it much longer. As she did, she saw his eyes flash to it, and that piqued her already considerable curiosity still further. "Hey. Seriously. Do I know you?"

His blue eyes studied her face intently, unblinkingly, apparently in search of guile or deceit. Finding nothing of the sort, just honest confusion, he swore under his breath and clenched a fist, staring up at the raftered roof as if in expectation of some kind of divine intervention. Emma had learned a long time ago not to put her eggs in this basket, but her own paranoia was starting to flare up; she had, after all, been enjoying herself in England so much due to the belief that nobody knew her. This guy was acting shifty to say the least, and she was completely fed up with evasive answers or none at all. "What's your name?" she snapped. She would have tied him down and held a knife to his throat if it meant cooperation.

Once again, those blue eyes flickered. "Killian Jones," he said, "though around here most people have taken to calling me by my less colorful moniker of _professor_. History, at Wadham." His gaze held hers, clearly expecting reciprocation.

"Emma," she said reluctantly. "Swan."

" _Swan?"_

Emma frowned at him again. "Yes. Why?" A sudden thought occurred to her. "Did you know a girl named Emma Nolan?"

"I. . . yes." He dragged a hand through his hair, looking pale and sickened. "What. . . what's happened to her?"

"Honestly? I don't know." _You have no need to go sharing intimate details with this creepy stranger._ What was _with_ these men who thought they could pop up in her world and be entitled to her life story? But somehow, even though this guy was fully as much bad news bears as August W.(hat a) Bastard, Emma found herself telling him. "I woke up in the hospital – long story there, never mind – and everybody thought I was her. It's kind of this Freaky Friday situation that will just not end, and I'm guessing that you – "

She stopped.

"You?" he prompted delicately.

"I _do_ know you!" She swung around on him like a long nine. "Wendy was looking for you! You were that professor back at Boston who just disappeared into thin air!"

He looked confused. Not very well, in fact horribly, but at least he tried. "I. . . oh?"

"Yeah. Look, I was in a coma and it completely fucked me over and then there was other stuff and. . ." No, she was not telling _this_ guy the trials and tribulations of Little Orphan Emma. "Long story short, some crazy asshole with a sword tried to kill me and sliced up my leg, and then I got kidnapped by another crazy asshole on a motorcycle, and then I just barely avoided getting convicted for felony drug trafficking, so there has been a lot of shit flying around and my memory's not what it should be, but I'm not mistaken about this. What are you doing _here?"_

He continued to look as if she'd just swung a brick into his face. Convulsively, he reached for her. "I – Emma. . . Miss. . . Swan, I should apologize, I – "

"Yeah, save it." Emma stepped away, not wanting to get any closer. There was already a strange electrical current in the air, probably just the natural result of standing in such proximity to an unfairly good-looking man, but he may or may not be some kind of fugitive from justice or something even worse. She kept her eyes on his. "We going to pay for your broken ship or not?"

"I'll. . ." He swallowed. "Handle it."

"Okay, if you're sure. It's your business if you're here, but I'm guessing there are a lot of folks back in Boston who are wondering where you went. You should – "

"No," he interrupted. Low, hard, dark and dangerous, cold and level as a ship captain barking orders in a storm. "As you said, it's my business. And as _I_ said, forget you saw me."

"Why?"

"Just do." He glanced away. "Try it, darling. It's called trust."

"Trust _you?"_ She almost laughed out loud. "Yeah, you're not suspicious at _all_ , are you? Looks like you're right. I'm pretty sure we're better off without you. So you'll understand if I. . . take my leave. Head start. If you will."

With that, she spun on her boot heel, not daring to look back at him. He stood as motionless as if he was chained in place, but as she strode away, he shouted after her. "Swan? Swan! _Swan!"_

Putting her head down, she ran.

* * *

After _that_ little encounter, Emma was as twitchy as a meth addict while waiting for Wendy at the High Street gate, shifting from foot to foot and anxiously scanning the crowd to make sure Professor Jones wasn't after her. But he was the one who'd said that she should forget him, so she devoutly trusted they wouldn't cross paths again. Whatever his deal was, it was a doozy. Despite herself, she found herself speculating. Mental problems? Imbalanced priorities? General psychosis? It was something to ask the matriarch of the Darling family about when they got back to London, assuming she could screw up the nerve for the conversation. Grandma Wendy was one of those old ladies who could reduce you to a puddle of goo with a look.

At last, the younger Wendy emerged, cheerily asked Emma if she'd had a good time, and seemed oblivious to her mumbled non sequiturs. It was dark by now, and they strolled down the High to Alfred Street; they were meeting Wendy's friends for dinner at the Bear, the oldest pub in Oxford. Supposedly of thirteenth-century vintage, it was tiny and dim, the ceiling crammed with crooked low beams and the walls covered with a vast collection of framed college ties, traded by patrons (some mildly famous) over the years in exchange for free beer. It was also, like any ancient edifice worth its salt, reportedly haunted, ghosts spotted knee-deep in the floors because they had walked the original ones in life. Wendy had never glimpsed any such specters herself, she assured Emma, though she could see how the legend had gotten going after a few pints.

They headed in, claimed a table, and made the round of introductions as Wendy's friends turned up. All of them effusively shook Emma's hand and pronounced themselves delighted to meet her, and baskets of fish and chips and foaming pint glasses soon stacked up. Emma felt as awkward as the one outsider always does in the group of people who know each other intimately, but to their credit, they all made efforts to include her in the conversation. That, however, was its own misery; they wanted to know what she was studying, where she was from, and all the other small talk she'd never gotten good at, and she couldn't decide whether to saddle them with the ugly truth or revert to the Emma Nolan cover-story version of things. Each one felt like a lie and a cop-out in its own way, so she finally supplied them with answers so minimal that they must surely have gotten the impression that she was the unfriendly American. Or it was all in her head. Or something. God, she hated trying to be a people person. More beer.

It was quite late indeed when they finally paid the bar tab and headed out, and Wendy and Emma attached themselves to the friend they were spending the night with, Felix Peters; from the way Wendy looked at him, in fact, Emma got the impression that he was somewhat more than a friend. But he gallantly offered the ladies an arm each, and they ambled through the deserted Radcliffe Square, past the Camera and the Bod, past the Bridge of Sighs and onto Parks Road. Turning into the college, she caught a glimpse of the sign, and –

"Hey," Emma blurted, pulse speeding up. "This is Wadham?"

Felix looked at her confusedly. "Yes. I'm in my second year here, reading PPE."

"Translation," Wendy supplied, "he's studying philosophy, politics, and economics. Felix, you have to at least _try_ to speak American for her, you know."

"I do not! Churchill's my man. Two nations divided by a common language!"

The two of them ran through the dark gate, squealing and pretending to wrestle each other, and Emma, rolling her eyes and trying to pretend that her heart wasn't pounding, followed them in. Felix, recovering his composure with an embarrassed cough, led them up the creaking stairs to his room, a big old one with a clanking radiator, a window that overlooked the front quad, a bedroom and a sitting area, a desk, and things thrown everywhere; in that respect, it looked comfortingly like any dorm. He pulled out the couch bed. "All right if you kip here, Emma?"

"Sleep," Wendy whispered.

"Oh. Yeah, yeah, that's fine."

Felix rolled his eyes in martyred mock exasperation, then made up the bed for her; Wendy, plainly, was going to be joining him in his. Emma, who was used to her roommate's periodic sexiles, had come prepared; she pulled out her earplugs with a flourish, making them blush, and then went into the bathroom to change and get ready for sleep. They could entertain themselves all they wanted, but she could barely keep her eyes open.

As she undressed, she realized that she was trembling. Why? That was fucking ridiculous. It was just a nasty coincidence that Professor Jones happened to work at this college; there were thirty-nine of them in Oxford, making up the conglomeration of the university, so the odds were steep but not impossible. He certainly wasn't about to go on a nighttime prowl through the students' rooms, so she just needed to get a god damn grip.

Emma brushed her teeth, tied her hair into a braid, and padded out. She crawled into the couch bed; it was sagging, but comfortable, and she yawned widely enough to crack her jaw. Felix and Wendy went into the bedroom and shut the door behind them, and she felt a stinging, painful jealousy hard enough to make tears well up. It was so easy for Wendy, with guys. She was young, stupidly rich, and smart, not to mention pretty, down-to-earth, and kind-natured; it was no surprise that they flocked to her. Wendy was never alone, never had to worry that she'd completely fucked up her chance, that even if Neal was a loser he was the only one she had. . . oh God, where _was_ he? It wasn't too late (was it?) to find out if August had been telling the truth. Go look for him. . . but shouldn't he come look for her? Or had she completely fucked that up too by telling the feds to bust him?

No. Forget that. She hated him. He was a dickhead, he'd broken her heart, and he'd set her up and run, for completely unfathomable reasons of his own. She owed him jack and shit. He could keep running forever, for all she cared. It was what he was good at, apparently.

For all she cared.

Sniffling, Emma rolled over and smudged the tears out of her eyes. As she did, a dim green sparkle caught the low light filtering in through the curtains, and she realized that she still had the ring on. Probably she should take it off, but she didn't want to.

She rolled over again, plumped up the pillow, and let her head drop into it heavily. Strange as it sounded, she wanted to dream about that shadow again, that boy. She knew him. He was hers. She wasn't afraid. She'd find him. Somehow. He'd come. He would.

Sleep was already approaching, stealing up like a soft black mantle. She closed her eyes and fell.

* * *

She was here.

She was _here._

Bloody, bloody, fucking hellfire, _she was here._

Killian had blundered through the rest of his evening in complete disarray, feeling damned lucky that he didn't have another tutorial until tomorrow morning; they would have surely thought him the dullest and/or densest professor in existence (which, considering some of the dolts he'd encountered, was setting a high bar). He'd been settling into Oxford rather well, all things considered. The academic format was similar to what it had been at Trinity: the tutor met one hour a week with each individual student. If this seemed to an outside observer like a soft option, it was rapidly disabused by the realization that the student was expected to read a stack of books and write an essay every single week, and then be prepared to talk intelligently about it and defend their thesis while one of the smartest people in the world peppered them with questions. This was a bit of a stretch on Killian's part; "smart" in no way encompassed any the decisions he'd been making recently, but at least he could hold his own in the field of early modern European history, and that was what Wadham was paying him for.

Aside from the four undergraduates he was tutoring, he was also giving two lectures a week at the Exam Schools, which all Oxford students could attend to supplement their coursework as they liked. He'd been focusing mostly on the colonial mercantile system and eighteenth-century economic and nation-state competition, which in turn entailed a discussion of pirates. Everybody had seemed quite favorably impressed at how much he knew. _Ha. If they'd only bloody guess._

All of Killian's pride at his more-or-less-successful transition, however, was currently up in smoke. He was pacing back and forth in his new flat, which was above the Volkswagen dealership out on Iffley Road; not a luxury accommodation by any means, but just about what his pound could be pinched to cover. Hellfire, so it was true. Tamara might have been lying about absolutely everything else under the sun, but she hadn't lied about that. The curse had changed, somehow, erasing all of Emma's old memories, altering her into a different person altogether. He could still hear himself shouting after her. _Swan? Swan! SWAN!_

He clenched a fist, breath coming short and sharp through his nose. He couldn't run away, not again. He'd already done that once, was still shirking like a bloody coward from the task of calling BC and informing them that he was never coming back, and he certainly had no sort of leash to cut bait once more. But he had left to avoid her, to shield her from the shadow, and now she had the damned temerity to appear here in Oxford, the last place she was supposed to be. . .

_Do I know you?_

A growl burned up his throat, emerging as a roar, and he spun around and drove his fist into the wall, hard enough to leave a knuckle-shaped dent. It did somewhat more damage to the knuckles themselves, but he was beyond caring. He kept on battering it, not giving a steaming damn what the landlord was liable to say, wondering if the neighbors would phone the police and not caring about that either. It had to be, didn't it? Aye, it did. The only woman who had reached him in his barrow of grief and guilt and rage, the only woman who had made him wonder, after three hundred years, if there might be life after Milah was a stubborn blonde lass, a _student_ for God's sake, completely off-limits even if he was no longer her professor or even teaching at her institution. Not only that, she now had no idea who she was, had been in a coma and then hurt further by his own fucking idiocy, and now was blithely turning up in the one place he'd thought to run to escape her and protect her, in no idea of the danger, of the shadow, if it. . .

As Killian had expected, the shadow hadn't yet found him here. It was most likely knocking about the Darling house, if anywhere, but as Wendy hadn't yet called him to come back and fight it again, it apparently was no longer going after Jack, as he'd predicted. This, however, was no cause for celebration. It would find him sooner or later, and he was still no closer to working out who was mastering it. How to kill it. He'd have to spend time working out that. And then how to kill the crocodile. And so on. It just went on and on, a cycle of murder and vengeance.

Suddenly exhausted, he desisted from his pacing and dropped into the ratty armchair. It had come with the flat; all of his own things were still back in Boston, and going back to fetch them was a bother and an expense he wasn't prepared to front at this time. He stared dully at the wall, blood banging behind his eyes. Fuck, he had a headache. It might have something to do with the half-empty bottle of rum on the kitchen counter, and he was tempted to go back and polish off the lot, but he knew he'd been drinking more than he ought, more than he had since the first miserable blackened nights immediately after losing Milah, and while he might be a gutless wretch in every other way, at least he should be strong enough to face up to his cumulative series of terrible mistakes without liquid medication. _No. Pour it down the drain and go to bed._

Groaning, Killian hauled himself out of the chair and staggered to the counter. He carried the rum to the sink and held it there, poised to tip it out, but couldn't quite bring himself to it. _She smashed my ship._ Another surge of sick anger burned through him. He'd lost the real thing, and now even the model of it too. Couldn't Emma just have looked where she was going, damn it? Couldn't she just have bloody stayed where she was safe?

His fingers were shaking. Furious with himself, he tipped the bottle up and watched the golden liquid gurgle down the sink, held it there until it was gone. Then, briefly tempted to smash it against the wall, he chucked it into the recycling and stumbled upstairs to his bedroom.

Killian undressed and crawled between the cool sheets, then lay there with his head pounding like a Celtic drum. Ghosts flitted behind his closed eyelids, always out of reach, offering no relief. The night went on. The hours lurched and reeled and staggered away. Somehow, eventually, he must have slept, but his dreams were no comfort. _Never forget what you are. Never forget who you are._

It pounded in his head, tormenting him.

_Hook._

_Hook._

_Hook._

* * *

Sore, sticky-eyed, and feeling as if he'd been beaten head to toe with a truncheon, Killian dragged himself out of bed at dawn and dressed. It was a clear, cold November morning, and he decided to walk in. His first tute wasn't until 9 AM, but he could stop for a coffee and pastry at Queen's Lane, take a leisurely breakfast and hopefully look less like an escapee from the mental asylum, which was in fact exactly what he felt like. So he pulled on his jacket, scarf, and cap, and slung his leather satchel over his shoulder. Locking the door behind him, he stepped out.

It was a quiet walk up Iffley to the Magdalen Bridge, the bare trees sketching elegant black traceries against the low white winter sky. The sun wasn't warm enough to make much of a difference in the temperature, but it was nonetheless comforting, and Killian felt some of the madness of last night receding just the barest bit, out to sea. Not enough to make it stop hurting, but enough for him to keep on existing, and that was how he had made it so far.

He crossed the bridge and continued up the High to Queen's Lane, ducking under the low khaki awning into the warm, steamy coffee shop to select a cappuccino and croissant. But as much as he wanted to stay a while, finish marking the essays for his students tomorrow, something pulled at him, some prickling on the back of his neck, and it made him uneasy. He asked for the coffee to go and the croissant in a takeaway bag, then stepped back out and quickened his pace.

He was almost running by the time he reached Radcliffe Square, with no idea why. He veered across it and onto Parks Road, suddenly realizing that he was making for Wadham and in a tearing hurry; his coffee was in danger of splashing everywhere. But he ignored it, sprinting up the walk and past the startled porter with barely the courtesy of a good-morning. Then he raced down the quad, toward the fellows' garden. That was where he'd had the interview and gotten the job, but this was something different, something, he could sense it, a thousand ants crawling on his skin –

Killian flew past the chapel, burned around the corner, and saw.

The pale hair was Emma's beyond a doubt. Just as surely as he'd recognized it when her hood had tumbled down, on that fateful night back in Boston, he recognized it now, and it felt like even more of a blow to the chest. She was standing in the trees at the far end of the garden, her back turned to him, holding her hand out to –

Bloody hell. No. No. _No._

It was almost like seeing Milah on the deck of the _Roger_ again, Milah between him and the crocodile, her beating heart ripped from her chest while he stood there foolishly, frozen, unable to help her, to save her, to watch it crumbled to dust, only to catch her, hold her as she died –

Not this time.

_Not this time._

Killian's own heart shriveled in his chest.

He lunged.


	18. Chapter 18

Emma had been fast asleep when the pale white witchlight fell over her, glowing under her closed eyelids and rousing her to the groggy surface of wakefulness. For a long moment she could not remember where she was or what was going on, until her eyes opened the rest of the way, and she found herself in the couch bed in Felix's room. It must be morning already. Fuck. It felt like she'd just gone under. She groped at the table where she'd thrown her stuff. Her phone didn't work in Britain, so Wendy had bought her one of those pay-as-you-go top-ups from Orange – like she'd really need one here, but it did serve as a clock and –

5:23 AM.

What? Hold on a hot second. In Oxford in winter, it definitely wasn't light at 5:30 in the morning. Maybe it was LED light – were Felix and Wendy enjoying a post-coital snuggle and movie, and opened their door for some reason? No, it remained dark, firmly closed and quiet. Streetlight? No, the window that overlooked Parks Road was curtained. Had the ghosts from the Bear followed her here and decided to spook the tourist when she wasn't expecting it, like the Spanish Inquisition? Didn't appear that way either. So what on fucking earth –

The window over the front quad. It was coming from there, fainter now but unmistakable, pulsing and twinkling like a star. There was something there. Tapping at the glass.

Emma's throat was dry. She wasn't quite sure, suddenly, if she was asleep or awake, or somewhere between, still dreaming. But she remembered what had happened at the Darling house, thinking there was something at the nursery window, and her own hope that it would come back. What if it had? What if for the first time in her life, someone had found her?

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and hurried across the floor, in her old T-shirt and flannel pajama pants, hair falling loose out of its braid. She pulled out the pin in the window and accordioned it open, into the cold night, then felt a brush as something rustled past. Was that it? Or was there –

A young boy's voice from behind her said, "Hello, Emma."

Scared out of her wits, Emma spun around, stumbling and crashing against the wall hard enough that she was certain the noise would wake Wendy and Felix. Pressing a hand to her chest, which her heart was apparently trying to leap out of, she inhaled a few hard, gusty breaths through her nose. She wanted to run into the bathroom and shut herself up, in fact, but reminded herself that she was the one who'd opened the window, who'd let it – him – in. She took a few more gasps, then turned around, trying very hard to keep her voice even. "Who are you?"

He was standing there, head cocked, hand on his hip, as if he'd been there all along. Perhaps he had. The shadow receded from him, revealing exactly the face of the kid she'd been dreaming about, the one with the lopsided smile and the freckles and the messy brown hair, a kid dressed in green rags and leaves, a set of pipes and a sword slung at his waist. He had a faint, eerie shine to him as if he was almost transparent, as if she could squint very hard and see through him to the other side. He made no sound as he stepped closer. "You know me, right?"

"I. . ." Her throat was still parched, her tongue useless. She almost thought she did – but that was impossible. She'd given him up, given him away, known she'd lost him, that he'd never lived. And now he was coming back like this, when he hadn't – it wasn't even _possible –_

"You," she whispered. "You're. . . Peter?"

"I guess." He shrugged. "My name's really Henry, but most people call me Pan. I've been looking for you, Emma. I want you to come with me."

Okay. She could deal with this. Fine. Lost son strolls back into your life from nowhere all gung-ho and wants you to go with him. Cool. Actually, fucking not. "Wait, I just – how are you _real?_ You weren't even _born,_ I mean, they all told me that if I ever even was pregnant, I – "

He grinned at her, Neal's sheepish hangdog grin to the life, almost making her heart stop. "I'm not real. Not here. Where do you think all the lost boys go, if not to Neverland? That's where I live. Time doesn't matter there, so it doesn't matter how long ago anyone was abandoned. Don't you want to come with me, Emma? You could be a mother. My mother."

"I. . .no. Hold on. Just hold on." As furiously tempted as she was, she held back. "No, I am the least qualified person on the planet for anything like that. My life is a complete mess, I can't. . ."

"Do you think I'd be here if not? Don't you see? It's horrible to grow up and live in this world, isn't it? In Neverland, I'm in control. Nobody can ever leave and go away and abandon us again. I won't let them."

"You won't, huh?" Emma said faintly. God, how she wanted to believe it, to think that it could in fact be so terrifyingly easy. Wasn't that what Neverland was – the place where children could just steal away in the dark of night and never be seen again? Something was happening to her, seducing her, whispering, begging her to put out her hand to his and lift off, but if there was anything her life had taught her, it was to be suspicious of easy answers and instant panaceas. But to sink away, to leave the past behind. . . to never be afraid again. . .

"I don't know," she hedged. "Can I think about it?"

"What's there to think about?" The boy swept a dismissive hand at the dark room. "Why do you even like them, Emma? They don't like you, they don't want you. There's nobody in this world who cares for you. Come with me. Come on. Please?"

"Look, if I go, I'm not going in my pajamas." She made a self-deprecating gesture at her current outfit. "I know that's the tradition, right? But I'm not really one for that. At least let me change."

"Okay," he said, and smiled. "Hurry. We'll go at dawn."

Emma hadn't noticed, exactly, how long it had been since he'd come in, or how much time had passed, as if she'd entered into that liminal space with him where such things simply didn't matter. But she ducked into the bathroom and began fumbling for the clothes she'd shed earlier in the night. What could it really hurt, right? At worst, this was all some fucked-up dream and she'd wake up eating bark off the trees in Hyde Park, the kind of harmless eccentric who would probably be removed from the streets but not thrown in a straitjacket in a padded cell. She didn't _feel_ crazy, but everyone in her life had been telling her not to trust herself, that she couldn't be believed, that everything she knew was a lie. Even Jack, even Wendy, who purportedly had her best interests at heart, were still telling her that she still had to cross her fingers and wait for her imaginary parents to come back, and Emma Swan was sick of lies. Sick of being hunted. Sick of being a scared, abandoned child. Sick of everything.

So. . . why not?

Neverland was the place where the lost boys – and girls – went. Maybe what he had said was true. A place for people like her. Maybe she just wanted the freedom to choose her own fate, to do something that was for her and no one else. Run away, as far and as fast as she could, and never be frightened again. She would, she'd go, she'd –

She opened the bathroom door, and stopped.

The window was still open, curtains drifting gently in the cold breeze. Etchings of grey dawn were lighting the room, scattering on the floor, but where the boy had stood, there was nothing, no whisper, not even a fallen leaf. Either it had only been some kind of sick, sick dream, or he, like everyone else, had left her too. After promising – after _promising –_

"Henry?" Her voice was thin and frightened. A child's voice herself. "Henry. . .?"

Glancing around, she saw what looked like a faint tracing of footsteps leading to the door. She ran across the floor, following them, and down the steps out into the quad. The least she could do was wake up if she was going to, but she didn't. So she edged down the path, to the steps that led into the college chapel, and ducked through the corridor into the garden beyond.

Her breath steamed in the chill rosy air. She hesitated, thinking she spotted a shadow in the trees at the far end, and hurried down to it, footsteps echoing. But there was still no one there, and she shook her head and pinched herself hard. _Wake up, Emma. Wake up._ Yeah. Like it was even possible to fly off to freakin' Neverland, to just drop everything and vanish forever. She had learned time and time again that there were no fairy godmothers and no happy endings, no magic, no pixie dust. Nothing but a lie. But she wanted it, she _wanted. . ._ "Henry? Henry, where are you? Henry, don't leave. . . please, I want to go with you, _please – "_

She felt rather than heard someone at her back, something rustling amid the bare branches, and whirled toward it, holding both hands out. "Henry? Come back, it's me, I want – "

Yes, it was him. She was sure of it. The shadow. Receding away quick as the tide on the beach, but still him, dawn not yet passed, her chance still here.

She lunged. Grabbed for it. With everything she had.

And just then, from behind, someone grabbed her.

* * *

The shock was so great that it almost froze her solid. She'd been so fixated on the shadow that an entire drum-and-trumpet company could have come marching into the quiet Wadham gardens and she wouldn't have noticed, but this was only one. One man, arms locked around her waist, pulling her back, shouting in her ear. _"No,_ Emma! No, get away from it, it'll – "

"Let _go_ of me!" She struggled violently. "Let _go,_ how can you possibly – just – just – "

The harder she fought him, however, the harder he held on, and a dawning, horrible recognition began to crash over her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a familiar face, the very one she'd run into at the covered market and subsequently stalked away from. What the actual fuck – she'd known he taught here, but to stumble upon him in the damn _garden,_ at the ass-crack of dawn, when she was no longer sure if she'd been dreaming, if a boy or a shadow or anything had really come to visit, if she was simply losing her mind altogether or on the verge of finding it again – he whirled her around, pulling her solidly against him, leaving her nowhere to go and barely any room to breathe.

"Emma," he said in her ear, low and urgently. "Emma, lass. Look at me. Look at me."

Slowly, unwillingly, she canted her chin back. It felt like an electric shock when she met his eyes, unblinking, dark as sapphires, intent and imploring. She bit her lip, hackles going up. "What the hell do you know about that? About anything?"

"Enough." He didn't loosen his grip. "It was a shadow, wasn't it? That came to you?"

"Maybe." To fuck with this. She still didn't owe him anything. "Who _are_ you?"

"Killian Jones," he said calmly, "just as I've told you. I don't know what it's been doing with you, what you thought it was. . . but that thing is a bloody murderer. If it takes you, it will _never_ let you go, do you hear me? You will belong to it, it will own you, and unless I quite miss my guess, that's the last thing you want. You want your freedom, you think by fleeing there you'll find it. . . but you won't, Emma. Neverland is a prison. A beautiful, seducing, alluring prison. . . but a prison nonetheless. And you shouldn't be caged again."

A frisson of freezing shock shot down her spine. "The hell you. . . _Neverland?"_ As if it hadn't before, but this was seriously taking a turn for the fucking weird. There was no way he could know about that, much less that that was exactly where the shadow had been offering to take her. She struggled, but quite a bit less vehemently than before. "You're insane."

"Am I?" His hot breath on her ear, his face very close to hers. "Or am I the only one at all making any sense right now?"

That stumped her. She didn't have an answer – or rather she did, but it was one she much preferred not to give. It was a good thing it was still so early, that the college remained asleep; this must look quite a bit like a secret, passionate tryst. He didn't need to hold her so close, and she didn't need to let him, but somehow she couldn't summon up the willpower to break away altogether. He _was_ strong, and extremely stubborn, and leaning her head against his chest despite all her intentions to the contrary, she could hear his heart thumping steadily beneath her ear. It was odd that just yesterday, she'd instructed him in no uncertain terms to get lost, but somehow he'd already found his way back to her. His interference might not be welcome, but it was a revelation to her that anyone would care enough to interfere at all. That even when she'd shoved him away, he'd returned, he'd. . .

Despite herself, she could feel the defiance draining out of her. His body was warm and comforting and solid, his arms still tight around her, and she felt anchored, harbored, _safe,_ for the first time since she wasn't even going to attempt to think of when. Yes, he was an infuriating son of a bitch who didn't know when to quit, yes, he was almost certainly up to something, and yes, he had very recently been her professor before fleeing BC in all kinds of shady circumstances, but. . . after the pain of losing Henry, if he'd ever been real, if she hadn't dreamed him, if. . .

Slowly, shyly, scared, Emma moved closer. She could feel a fine tremor run through Killian as their noses touched, as their breath mingled in the cold, as his hand slid up her back to the nape of her neck, cradling her head beneath the tangled fall of hair. After all the preceding lunacy, she was completely out of excuses not to do anything. As if they were mesmerized, as if it mattered, as if it was the only real thing in the world, they closed the last few breaths of space between them and met halfway, his stubble scratching her face, but his mouth so desperately sweet.

Emma took in a sharp breath through her nose and turned her head, drawing him closer, her hand fisting in his dark hair; the green stone of the ring sparkled in the cold winter dawn. They kissed for a long and transcendent moment, in which time once more seemed to stand still. Her lips opened for his tongue, their mouths mused and met again, small gasps, sensations, and –

It ripped through her like steel, like a scream.

_Memories._

Nothing complete, nothing whole, only partial, only piecemeal, jagged as broken glass, unbearable. She saw – she saw _him –_ black leather jacket and cutting leer, saw him holding a sword on someone, a fucking _sword_ – stealing her, kidnapping her – a blade, sharp lance of pain – that time late at night, running – a horrible knowledge of danger and darkness, of vengeance and violence and blood, a shadow receding from her, a man walking away from a girl in a hospital bed, that light she'd chased forever in her darkness only for it to go out –

Emma broke the kiss with something close to a shriek, shoving him away with both hands. "What are you – Jesus, what did you – _get away from me!"_

Killian stared at her, still stupefied and trying desperately to surface. "Emma – what – ?"

"I remember," she breathed. "Not all of it. But enough. You. _You_ _hurt me. You left me."_

He flinched as if she'd struck him. "Look – I didn't – I wouldn't – "

"You're lying to me!" There could be no doubt. Her superpower was blazing in her chest at full roar, and she felt as if she could open her mouth and breathe fire, a dragon to burn all else away. "Don't you _dare_ stand there and lie to my face! _Don't you dare!"_

Killian Jones reached for her desperately. "Lass – there's no excuse for it, but listen – I'm not proud of it, I won't go back, I can't – I was trying to protect – "

"I've heard that one a lot." She threw back her head and laughed, high and savagely. "A whole-fucking-lot. Get away from me. _Get. Away."_

He stood motionless, as stunned as if she'd swung a sandbag into him. She stumbled further away, not sure if he was going to attack her, hot tears scorching up her eyes, flooding into her throat. She turned her back on him and – like the original mother, like Eve, banished by her own sin, by the terrible fruit of knowledge – fled from the garden, never to return.

* * *

The rest of the Thanksgiving break passed in an utter blur. Emma and Wendy spent another day in Oxford, but Emma didn't remember a thing about where they went or who they saw. They took the train back to London and went shopping at Harrod's, whereupon Wendy wanted to buy her something, but Emma had no idea what that was either. She did not ask the Darling family about anything, speak a word about what had happened to her. She was out of tears. Out of breath. Out of caring.

They flew back to Boston on Saturday afternoon, so they could have Sunday to readjust and acclimate before starting classes again on Monday. That, at least, was the plan, but Emma found that here, as with everywhere else, her tolerance had hit its limit. She was done with this game. She needed to make a break.

When Jack called later that week, trying to reschedule the meeting with Tamara, Emma told her flatly that she wasn't interested. She wasn't going. She'd learned once and for all that chasing after the phantoms of her family was just a delusional waste of time, and she was sick of it. The lawyer protested, tried to persuade her, to get her to change her mind, but Emma Swan could be as stubborn as anybody when she applied herself to it. No. That was it. Case closed. Finito.

With this decision made, Emma knew it was time for another. She'd missed the deadline to start in January, but there was still plenty of time to put together a transfer application to Boston University and move there for the fall semester. Also, forget this whole useless idea of majoring in history. There was a criminal justice program at BU, and she intended to enroll. She wasn't sure how many of her credits would apply, but that didn't matter either. She needed to get off this godforsaken campus, she needed to get somewhere that nobody knew her, and start again. Clean slate. Yes please.

Wendy was not at all happy to hear of this plan. "Emma," she begged. "Please, just think about it. You can still repair your life here. You don't have to leave. I promise, things will start to get better. If you let people help you – "

"Who?" Emma removed a dart from the corkboard and threw it. "You? Yeah, I've done this song and dance before. I'm not going to be the charity-case poor kid. I'm just not. And maybe I'm sick of trying to fix things. BU is just across town, it's not like I'm going to Mongolia. You can visit me if you really have to. But there's pretty much no way I can stay here without going completely crazy, and I'd appreciate it if you would respect that. I don't need you anymore."

"You don't mean that," Wendy said softly. "Of course you do. I want – "

Emma whirled on her. "I don't care what you want, all right? I don't care what anybody wants. This is about the only reasonable thing I have available to do with my life, and I'm making this decision for me. I'm transferring to BU and that's the end of the story. _Capisce?_ "

Wendy was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "You can still come with me to London for Christmas. We'd be happy to have you. You can – "

Emma laughed. "No. Definitely not. Definitely, _definitely_ not. Thanks for everything, Wendy. Really. You've done your best, and that's a lot more than most people have done. But this is goodbye. So. . . goodbye."

Silence. Stretching between them. Huge and mountainous. She still had time to retreat, to cross this bridge, to apologize. But she didn't. She only walked on.

She could not look back.

* * *

Emma finished the winter semester at Boston College. She managed to ace her finals, a commendation for her transfer application, and got in touch with the academic advisors at Boston University to see if there was anything more she needed to do. Instead of going with Wendy to London, she spent Christmas break by herself, renting a room in a youth hostel downtown and sneaking into holiday parties at the big fancy hotels to steal food. She wandered the shopping district and the riverfront, looking at the lights and decorations. Once or twice, she got a kind-hearted individual to buy her a hot chocolate or a warm meal, people moved by the giving spirit and all that shit. It wasn't that bad. It was much better to be on her own rather than with people who knew nothing about you. She had always been good at it.

In fact, Emma decided, she couldn't face the prospect of actually going back to BC, when she had so thoroughly shut that door in her head. There was still the opportunity of finishing out the spring semester there before starting at BU in the fall, but she didn't think she would. Take some time off. Work. Maybe make a little money. Anything, at this point. She wasn't picky.

Emma spent New Year's Eve cleaning out her dorm room at BC, loading her worldly possessions into her crappy yellow Bug and making plans, once the holidays were over, to go reapply for her important papers – Social Security, driver's license, passport, ID card – in her real name. She figured she probably couldn't get away with a fake address and fake name much longer, and that way when she started at BU, there would be no more confusion about Emma Nolan, no more people who knew her as anything other than Emma Swan. If only she knew what the address would be. She'd been trolling the Roommates Wanted section on the Boston Craigslist, but hadn't found anything that was both in her price range and sounded like a place she could actually live – if they weren't wanting to her to put up with "occasional loud parties!" then they were slyly remarking that "there are other ways for u to pay ur rent. . .. Serious Inquiries Only." Yeah. No.

 _Guess it'll be the youth hostel for now._ A Subway restaurant by the Prudential Center was hiring; she'd seen it on one of her long, rambling walks through downtown. If she could slash her expenses, keep on stealing food when she could, she could probably live on minimum wage until school started again. If not, she'd learned Boston pretty well by now, could find a warm place to crash a few nights, move on. In the back of the Bug if need be, so she definitely wouldn't freeze.

To her surprise, Emma was downright happy as she swept out her half of the room, took one last look around it, and shut the door, heading down to turn in her keys at the Student Housing office. The shadow hadn't visited her in her dreams again, she was shot of any painful and futile attempts to find her nonexistent parents, she'd get a new start at a new school with a new degree program, and no longer have to deal with people constantly mistaking her for someone she wasn't. That was how lost girls lived in this world. Not in Neverland. She was an idiot to have put any stock into that idea, that impossible dream, at all.

Now real life started. Now she woke up.

It was starting to sleet as Emma trotted down the steps, and she pulled her hood up and tightened her scarf, the car keys jingling in her mittened hand. She made for the parking lot, unlocked the Bug, and swung behind the wheel, turning the defrosters to high and setting the wipers to scrub at the already-accumulating layer of ice on the windshield. They'd set off fireworks as soon as it got dark, out over the Charles River. _Happy new year to me._

She turned on her headlights, and reversed out. All her stuff in the backseat in boxes. Guess this was it, then. So it was over. She pulled through the Boston College campus gates, double-shifted into gear, and drove away, down the road to her new life. She did not once look back.


	19. Chapter 19

**_Two Years Later_ **

The warm May sun beat down on her shoulders as she sat on the bleachers, one among a sea of students in crimson gowns and black mortarboards, a hum of excitement and anticipation traveling the crowd as they waited for the commencement ceremony to begin. Emma adjusted her robe and pushed her sunglasses up her nose, thumbing through the program as if to make sure one more time that this wasn't a mistake, that her name – **_Emma Ruth Swan_** – was still listed as a candidate for the Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice, _cum laude._ She'd busted her ass off to reach this day. Nobody had gotten her here but her. Nobody had held her hand. She'd worked and gone to school full time, living variously in the hostel, out of the back of the Bug, and then in a drafty garret room with some crazy cat lady in Cambridge, taking the train in and coming home past midnight, getting her homework done and leaving early the next morning for work. Crammed in the requirements, blood and sweat and tears. And now. Finally. Vindication.

Aside from ditching Phyllis MacLean and her five insufferable felines, Emma was the most excited about her new job. She'd heard all the horror stories about a recession economy and new grads walking around wearing sandwich boards, in hopes that someone would hire them so they could start paying back their ridiculous loans, but she must be the exception to the rule. After two years slaving away at Subway, making lunch for stressed executives from the Pru who stared pointedly at their watches and never said thank you, she was leaving customer-service hell for a real, actual grown-up job in a field directly pertinent to her degree. The Massachusetts state police had sponsored a booth at the BU career fair this spring, and she'd gotten talking with the recruiter. One thing led to another, she landed an interview, and not long after that, accepted an offer to join the Boston branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. In a funny twist of fate, James George, the guy who'd once arrested her, was now her direct supervisor.

Emma knew it was going to be mostly grunt work to start: photocopying, answering phones, making coffee, taking notes at department meetings, that kind of thing. But there were plenty of opportunities for advancement, and as the ATF worked closely with the federal justice system, it was very likely that she'd get a chance, sooner rather than later, to do actual field work. As an agent, she'd be responsible for stings, undercover jobs, casings, stakeouts, and other similar operations; she'd already been informed that her fresh college-girl looks made her an excellent candidate for such duties. Who would suspect the sweet, innocent blonde of any malfeasance? Then, of course, she would move in and take them down. At the self-defense course she'd been attending on weekends, she'd scared the shit out of men twice her age and twice her size. No matter which kind of perps tried it on with her, they were in for a giant fucking surprise.

The sound of the university band striking up jerked Emma back to the present. They'd already droned through about a hundred repetitions of "Pomp and Circumstance," so at least this time they just had to play the fight song before the show got on the road. After the ceremony and reception, she was heading back to Cambridge to pick up her stuff, then to her new apartment, an approximately one-hundred-square foot closet crammed on the second floor of a historic brownstone in the Back Bay. But it was all hers, she was finally rid of her insane landlady, and the neighborhood and location were great. Ten minutes to work on the T.

The BU president stepped up to welcome them, and the vaguely pleasant parade of speeches and honors began. Emma had already walked at her school's individual ceremony, so this time she just had to stand with the rest of them and wave for the big screens. She didn't have anyone she was waving for. No parents, no relatives, no boyfriend. She'd dated a few guys, but the longest relationship had been six weeks, and after that she quit trying. If she needed sex, she could find it. One-night stands were her forte. Otherwise, she was fine alone.

Despite herself, she couldn't help but wonder what Wendy and Alice were doing. Boston College's graduation had been a few days ago, and she'd watched it online, feeling no real regret for not being there herself but still getting teary-eyed when she caught sight of her former roommates in the crowd. After she'd left BC, she hadn't kept up with them. They kept trying to find a time to visit, but she kept finding convenient other things to do on whatever day they suggested. Ignored Wendy's emails until, just a few months ago, they finally stopped coming. Wanted to feel proud of herself, but only felt small. _See. Look. I did it myself. I didn't need you to hold my hand._

Commencement concluded. They threw their hats in the air, switched their tassels, and were officially college graduates. Afterwards, she exchanged smiles and hugs with the few friends she'd made here; she hadn't had time for much of a social life, and didn't rue the lack. Then she headed to the bursar's office to stand in the endless line for diplomas, and was very hot and thirsty by the time she peeled off her robe, shouldered through the chattering families to the reception tent, and stuffed a few cookies in her mouth before heading off to catch the bus. It was a flawless, clear afternoon, and she decided that if she wasn't utterly wiped after retrieving her stuff, she'd head down to Fenway for a Red Sox game. She deserved a treat.

Forty minutes later, Emma was in Cambridge, loading boxes into the Bug and exulting in the fact that she never had to trip over another of Phyllis' cats again. She managed to get back into the Bay just before the traffic hit, and turned into the alley behind the brownstone where she parked; as she intended to walk and take public transit everywhere, she could feel somewhat smug at knowing that no one was going to steal her spot. She'd considered selling the Bug for extra money, but it was such a junker that it wasn't going to be worth much, and she liked the idea of mobility, of being able to pack up and go if she needed to. Just in case.

By the time she'd hauled the boxes up to the stuffy apartment, it was pushing five PM, and she had no desire at all to start unpacking. She locked the door with her new keys, jumped the T, and managed to snag a cheap-seats ticket at the Fenway box office window. Then she strolled into the cramped green confines, got a hot dog and soda, and settled in.

The game started, and the lights came on. Emma contentedly chomped her hot dog, raised an eyebrow at the commentary overheard around her, and around the fourth inning, got up to use the bathroom and buy an ice cream cone. She edged through the packed concourse, trying to scope the one with the shortest line, but they were all pretty busy and she was just going to have to –

 _What the._ No. She hadn't – but she definitely had. She screeched to a halt, causing someone to order her in a thick Boston accent to keep moving, lady, and scuttled to the side, pulling her cap down and staring at him furtively, frantically. What the _hell_ was he doing here? He wasn't supposed to be here, he wasn't supposed to be near her in any way, shape, or form. It had been two years since he and his craziness had come to play in her life, but she wasn't about to forget August W. Booth's face. Far as she knew, that restraining order was still good.

August, for his part, hadn't noticed her. He was leaning against one of the pylons, eating nachos and staring out at the field. There was a troubled, introspective look on his face, and when he finally stepped away, she noticed that he moved stiffly, almost limping. Probably a motorcycle accident; she was sure that he still rumbled around on that Harley causing problems for people. Not that she felt bad for him or anything. He'd chosen his path, she'd chosen hers, and –

Emma tried to sidle back into the crowd unobtrusively, let herself be swallowed up and turn this into just a bad coincidence. She would have succeeded too, if not for the fact that at that moment, August tripped over something and dropped his nachos. Clearly swearing under his breath, he bent down awkwardly to retrieve them – and as he did, caught her staring. He turned around, and their eyes locked.

Emma almost stopped breathing. The sound of the people and the game faded to a dull roar in her ears, and she felt as if she had turned to ice. If he walked toward her, if he took a _step_ toward her, she was going to call her new friends on the force and have them teach him a thing or two about the operation of the law. She had to. She had to keep him away from her. Him and his talk about a curse. About her destiny.

August, however, did not try to approach. Instead, he raised two fingers to his brow in a sort of salute, and smiled faintly. Then he turned away, salvaged nachos in hand, and kept on walking. In a moment more he too had vanished into the crowd.

* * *

By the time Emma got home late that night, she only had the strength to turn on the fan and collapse onto the bare mattress on the floor; at some point she would purchase actual furniture, but she hadn't gotten around to it yet. She was so exhausted that she could barely move, but even as she sank through the heavy layers of sleep, repressed memories were stealing up to the surface. Stuff she hadn't thought about since she left BC. Not just August, but. . .

If Emma was entirely honest with herself, there was some part of her, some small and secret part, that had never forgotten Killian Jones. Whoever he'd been, whatever he'd wanted; she still didn't know, and likely never would. He was the only man higher than August on the list of the guys who absolutely had to be kept away from her for her own sanity. If she ever saw him again, she wasn't sure what she'd do. Slap him, probably. He'd deserve it. Even if slapping was far from the only thing she wanted to do to him. Even if part of the reason she hadn't been able to date anybody was because no matter how badly that one kiss with him in the Wadham College gardens had ended, she had never, _never_ met anyone who made her feel anything remotely close.

She tossed and turned, hot and bothered, and not just by the temperature. Finally she had to make herself stop; she needed the weekend to sleep. She started her new job on Monday, and that was definitely going to be in both feet first. She couldn't wait until she got her next paycheck. Aside from the bills, she barely had enough right now for food.

Emma finally slipped under, and awoke on a brilliantly golden Sunday morning, light streaming into her room in white-hot glory. She yawned, lounged in bed for a while, then got up, padded out in her bare feet, and ate breakfast on her small balcony, looking over the yard below. Once she finally got around to getting dressed, she decided reluctantly to hit the boxes. They weren't going to unpack themselves, and she was officially an adult now.

This occupied much of the remaining day. She decided to head to the thrift store down the street in hopes of finding a few cheap pieces of furniture, and did better than she had been expecting. She was just heading up the stairs with them, lamp and side table and beanbag, when –

"Whoa!"

Emma flailed, almost falling headlong back down the stairs, which would have been extremely unpleasant indeed; she felt like she'd been hit by a car. It wasn't a car, however, but a guy maybe in his late thirties, bald, brown-eyed, grabbing worriedly at her to prevent her from breaking her neck, which was admittedly chivalrous of him. "Hey! You okay? I'm really sorry!"

"Yeah. Fine." Once she got her wind back, that was.

"I don't think I've seen you before. You the new tenant in 2R?"

"Yeah."

"Greg Mendel. It's nice to meet you." He offered a hand, apparently remembered that hers were full, and looked sheepish. "I live downstairs, 1R. Right beneath you, I guess. You can bang on the floor if I ever get too loud, I'll do the same on the ceiling. Deal?"

Oh, great. Clearly he thought he was being charming. "Yeah, you don't have to worry about that. I'm not the party type."

"Aw, don't worry. This building's pretty quiet. But actually, I'm having a barbecue tonight. My girlfriend and some of the people we know. Fun crowd. Wanna hang?"

"I. . . I don't really do social functions all that well." She tried to edge around him, but the old staircase was narrow and she had a lot of shit in her arms. "New job. Start on Monday. Get some sleep. You know?"

"Well then, you have to at least come by and have a celebratory burger. No pressure. Really."

"Can you get out of my way, please?"

Greg Mendel looked somewhat miffed, but flattened himself to the wall, and Emma bumped by. As she continued her ascent, he called up after her, "I don't think I caught your name?"

"Don't think I dropped it." Emma fumbled for her keys, unlocked the door, shuffled through, and shut it, quite a bit harder than necessary, behind her.

* * *

And then after that, since she was feeling guilty, she went to his fucking barbecue anyway.

Greg was clearly surprised to see her when he opened the door, but genially welcomed her in nonetheless, and accepted the store-bought apple pie she foisted on him as a peace offering. Inside, his apartment wasn't much bigger than hers, but already humming with an assortment of guests, drinking cheap beer, plinking on acoustic guitars, and wandering out to the backyard where the grill was set up; it was reminiscent of most of the college parties she'd been to. Also as she had at most of the parties she'd been to, she hovered awkwardly just inside the door, trying to decide if she wanted to wade in there and be social, or just skulk in here like a turtle in its shell in hopes that someone would take pity on her.

"Hey, let me get you a drink." Greg resurfaced at her elbow and steered her into the apartment's kitchen, where two women were leaning against the cupboards and chatting. One was elegant, slender, with smooth cocoa-colored skin and long black hair, vaguely familiar, and the other had blue eyes and messy brown curls piled in a bun, wearing a short minidress and sipping a glass of wine. Emma wondered which one was Greg's girlfriend.

"Babe, this is my neighbor." He leaned to kiss the cheek of the black woman, which apparently answered that question. "This is Tamara, and – I still haven't got your name?"

 _Tamara?_ The name reverberated through Emma like a kick. Talk about coincidences turning far too weird for their own good – first spying August W. Booth at the game, and now this? The woman who supposedly knew something about finding her parents? And wait. There was somewhere else she knew her from. It had been a few years, so she wasn't quite sure, but she was convinced of it. _What the_ fuck.

Everyone was still looking at her expectantly. Emma made herself smile – her close-mouthed, demure, her _fuck-you-I'll-find-out-what-you're-doing_ smile. "Ruth. It's nice to meet you."

"Indeed." Tamara smiled, although her eyes had narrowed as if she too was trying to work out where they'd met before. "Just moved in?"

"Yeah." Emma shrugged, then glanced to the other woman. "Hi."

"Hi." The barfly smiled, but didn't put down her glass. "I'm Lacey. Tamara and I work together."

"Really? What do you do?"

"We freelance. As it were." Lacey took another swig. "Go where the work takes us. Got a big case we're trying to crack right now."

"You're in law enforcement too?"

"You could say that. What about you?"

"ATF," Emma said guardedly. "Just graduated from Boston University this weekend, actually. Not sure what I'll be doing yet."

"Well, congrats." Lacey shrugged. "Sounds exciting. Here, I'll get you something."

She poured a glass of whatever she was drinking and handed it to Emma, who sipped it carefully. Her spidey senses were tingling. It wasn't that Lacey was lying, exactly, but something wasn't quite right. Perhaps that was unsurprising, given that she was apparently colleagues with a woman of (to say the least) unknown motives, but it made Emma extremely wary, even more so than usual, about letting her guard down with these people. _Law enforcement? My ass._

Despite this, however, the night passed uneventfully. The food was good, the drinks plentiful, and Emma cut herself off after two; she was starting work tomorrow morning, after all, and didn't want to go in with a hangover. The main problem was remembering to turn when someone called her Ruth. She didn't know where the middle name had come from, but it had been Emma Nolan's, and she hadn't seen any reason to get rid of it. It might be a drag going by a fake name around her neighbors, but she still didn't want them to know who she actually was.

She excused herself around 10pm and headed up the stairs back to her apartment. The place was still a mess, half-unpacked, but she fished out her clothes and hung them up in the bare bathroom; it was so small that you could barely turn around without hitting your ass on the sink or the toilet. As she regarded herself in the mirror, she wondered when, if ever, this place would start to feel like home. She was lucky to have it. She was.

After a moment, Emma sighed and turned away, rumpling her fingers through her long, tangled hair. She'd have to remember to set her alarm early enough to take a shower, and –

Something, some faint sound, made her head turn sharply. She might have been imagining it, but she thought she'd heard it, either at the door or the window. As if someone was there.

Emma narrowed her eyes, moved out into the living room, and jerked the door open, hoping to surprise anyone lurking outside – someone like Tamara, for example. But it only swung onto the deserted hall. Nothing. No one.

She shut it.

No one there.

* * *

Somewhat to Emma's surprise, her first month at her new job went off like a house afire. Indeed, so did the next one. She completed the preliminary certification courses, started to train with a firearm, and went through a metric fuckton of hours in simulators, followed by an equally mind-numbing brigade of computer tests and paperwork. Most of it was paperwork, in fact. There was also the usual office drama, petty regulations, and anal-retentive accounting departments who wanted everything in writing, three times. If she had envisioned a glamorous life traveling the world and catching crooks like some female James Bond, fast cars and lipstick and guns and glory, she was disappointed.

Nonetheless, she liked it. It was something she was good at, and her willingness to work ridiculously hard quickly impressed her supervisors. James George had taken a particular interest in her, in fact; they spent most of their evenings training at the facility gym. He did remember her from the whole marijuana fiasco, and one muggy July night as they were leaving late, he said, "You're probably wondering if we ever caught your guy, huh?"

Emma tensed. "What?"

"The guy who put the whole mess on you. Neal. You heard from him recently?"

She and her boss might have a good relationship, but not so much that Emma wasn't fully aware that he was asking in a decidedly professional capacity. If she copped to knowing anything about Neal, or that they'd been in contact, that was going directly into the evidence dossier to be explored as a potential lead. Apparently that meant they hadn't caught him, and she had no idea how that made her feel. "Nope. He's been MIA ever since he framed me and booked it."

"Classy." James snorted.

"Yeah. Speaking of which, how's Jack? She was my lawyer. What's she doing?"

"I don't know. We broke up a while ago. She got sick, and. . ." James shrugged. "Couldn't spare the time to take care of her, so. . . yeah."

Emma stared at him. "Classy."

"Hey, I don't judge your love life, you don't judge mine. And as a matter of fact, there's something I have to tell you. I needed to make sure you were clear because the agency received a tip a few nights ago. We're still putting together the details of the case and figuring out what kind of personnel we're going to assign, but this has the potential to be huge."

Emma's curiosity was piqued. "What?"

"According to the source – we're still verifying all this, and I don't need to tell you that this is strictly confidential – we've got somebody interesting coming to town. All kinds of stuff on his rap sheet. Murder, kidnapping, general scum and villainy. He's not actually somebody the federal guys are familiar with, so they're trying to pin him down as more than just a code name, work out who we're dealing with. Right now, all we know him as is Shamrock."

"Really," Emma said. James worked for the U.S. marshals as well as with the ATF, and he _did_ do the kind of hands-on perp-busting she was itching to get started with. "Who called in the tip?"

"Again, more code names. Identified themselves only as the Librarian." James shrugged wryly, as if to apologize for all the cloak-and-dagger stuff. "But you've been doing great on your tests and your sims and everything, and the higher-ups are thinking it's time to get your feet wet. Once we've got the intel clearer, we're going to try to intercept this guy and bring him in for a little chat. That's where you come in."

A grin spread across Emma's face, a little flicker at first and then broader. "Bring it on."

* * *

Over the next few days, as the investigation heated up, she worked harder than ever, determined to give them no reason to rethink assigning a rookie to this delicate sting operation. It wasn't like she was dealing with the Sicilian Mafia or a Colombian drug cartel, but it was still a sizeable task, especially if the Librarian was correct that this guy was coming in from abroad with murder on his mind. Catching an international killer _was_ harder than busting the clueless idiot trying to stick up the 7-Eleven with a sawed-off handgun, and even if the agency wanted her to take part, they weren't sending her in if it looked like she was going to get waxed.

Emma, for her part, was supremely confident in her ability to handle herself, but it was true that this was a different kind of defense than the kind she'd been playing all her life, and she did have to stay on her toes. Both here and at home. She'd successfully dodged any more barbecue invitations from Greg, but as she was picking up her mail a few days ago, she'd dropped an envelope and was reaching for it only to have it retrieved by Tamara, Greg's girlfriend and the very reason Emma wasn't attending any more friendly neighborhood shindigs. The other woman had looked at the address, appeared confused, and said, _"Emma,_ huh? I thought it was Ruth?"

"It is," Emma lied. "I guess they got mixed up. I get Comcast ads all the time with the wrong name. You know." She tried to restrain herself from snatching it back. "See you."

That had left her unsettled for longer than it should. It wasn't like Tamara had come busting into her place in a ski mask that night, demanding answers. It was probably all in her head; there was no reason for Tamara to connect her standoffish upstairs neighbor to a girl she'd once offered, through an intermediary, to help find her parents. She was probably just one of those annoying do-gooders who stuck their noses in where they weren't wanted. Or a social worker or something. Or whatever she and Lacey freelanced about, which was more than a little disturbing.

With all this in her head, Emma was grateful for work to distract her. And at last, the news she had been waiting for arrived. James called her into his office, and told her that it was a go. They'd tracked Shamrock down, set him up, and they were ready to go in for the kill. In fact, she was meeting him tomorrow night at the Renaissance Hotel on the Boston Harbor waterfront, in the lobby bar. He was under the impression that she was going to be passing him special information about his planned assassination. Instead, she was going to be wearing a pair of earrings that were bugged and GPS'ed. They would record every detail of the conversation, and if the waiting agents heard what they were scanning for, they'd be strolling in to introduce Shamrock, an Irish-sounding sort of guy, to some of Boston's Irish finest.

Emma prepared as meticulously as a samurai. She was allowed to have the morning off, and she slept late, had lunch at the café down the street, and then returned home to get the show on the road. She shaved and showered and moisturized, did her hair, and slipped into her skintight red dress, feeling a bit like she was in a James Bond movie after all. The other James, her boss, hadn't told her how to dress, but going all femme fatale was never a bad idea in Emma's book. She did her nails, put on her golden swan necklace, and then the bugged earrings. They were a pair of matching gold-crystal teardrops, looking like fine jewelry and nothing more, but she heard the faint static hiss when she switched them on.

That concluded, Emma slipped into stiletto heels, grabbed a silk scarf, and then her purse, heavy with the weight of her service handgun and ATF badge inside. She really didn't want to open fire in a crowded Boston bar, but she _was_ going in after at least a potential and possibly actual murderer, and thus not unarmed. This wasn't supposed to be a full-bore undercover operation, but it was very likely that the night was going to end with an arrest. If he tried to run. . . well, she wasn't expected to do the chasing and capturing herself. That was what her backup team was for.

Despite the heavy heat of the sweltering summer night, Emma found she was shivering as she stood out on the curb, waiting for her ride. They pulled up a few minutes later in an unmarked black car, and the shock of the air conditioning hit her as she stepped in. She slammed the door, and they were off, rolling into downtown.

"Remember," the agent in the front seat told her as they pulled up in front of the Renaissance. "If anything goes wrong, if anything feels weird, get out of there immediately and call us. We'll be thirty seconds away. You're set?"

Emma touched her earring, finding the little transmitter. "Yeah."

"Good girl. Okay. Operation is on. . . _now."_

Emma opened the car door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, heels clicking as she headed up to the glass doors, a steady current of people flowing by her to all sides. The doorman showed her in, and she stepped into the hotel foyer, glancing around. They'd given her a generic physical description, but she still hoped she didn't have to start walking up to random guys and asking them if they were a murderer code-named Shamrock. Yeah. Not going to go over so well.

She took a seat at the glowing blue bar and ordered a cocktail. Took a sip. Heart pounding, palms wet. Fuck it, she wasn't scared. Not at all. Just alert, on edge, adrenaline-highed. Her first real assignment and she had better not screw it up. She was –

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw somebody entering the hotel and striding through the lobby, heading with purpose into the bar. A man. Fit the preliminary description. Tall, dark-haired. Smart black suit, purple tie. Shit. Action. This might be him. Glancing around as if he too was searching for someone. As she watched, he moved closer. Looked up, looked at her, and –

Oh my God.

_Oh my God._

No.

* * *

The last two years had not been among the best of Killian Jones' life, and with the representative sample he had to choose from, that was saying quite something. After that, after whatever in bleeding hellfire had happened with Emma in the Wadham College gardens, he had been left full as shattered as she was. She said she remembered – she said she remembered him hurting her, leaving her. Both of which he had. No denying it. But if she'd seen it. . . seen something, known it, woken up. . . if the shadow had been after her as well, after both of them, after her for God knew what reason and after him because he was Hook, he was its mortal enemy by default. . .

 _No._ Milah was his love, his true love. He couldn't accept anything less, after how long and how hard he had fought his solitary, centuries-long battle for her. He too had to wake up, to realize what a damned fool he was being. Remember why he'd done anything. Let go. Let her go.

 _You're a bloody coward, Jones._ He knew it too, and knowing it scorched him to the core. But the only other option – going back to carry off and ravish an unwilling woman who plainly wanted nothing at all to do with him – made him once and for all into a pirate again, and for better or worse, he respected their choices when it came to him. And after so long, the only way he knew how to show devotion to a woman was obsessively crusading to destroy anyone who had hurt her. And so, he had spent the last two years teaching at Oxford, planning how exactly he would take down Gold, and hunting the shadow relentlessly. It wouldn't go after Emma again. Not if he had the barest thing to say about it.

It had struck Killian as well that he appeared to be getting his revenge for Emma before he'd even gotten it for Milah, and it made him furious. He reminded himself that he was just practicing for Gold, and whenever he absolutely had to see Wendy – only a few times, as they tended to keep their careful distance – he managed to make it sound as if he was adjusting far better than he was. He'd lied to her about his revenge so many times, about still wanting it, that she genuinely thought he'd given it up by now, that he'd stay as a professor and no harm done to anyone. But it was the summer vacation, meaning that he wasn't due back at Oxford until October and thus had plenty of free time, and his two-year deadline was up.

Killian had allowed a few extra months for Emma to move away from Boston after she graduated, presuming that she wouldn't want to stay; she'd run, like him. But now, now that he was certain she'd be gone, he was returning to America for the first time since he'd left. Get in touch with Tamara again, do what he had to, go to Storybrooke, and end Gold for good.

Then he could go back. Back to what?

Something. It had to be something. Oxford. Life. Something. He'd find it. He'd work it out.

As Killian Jones walked into the bar of the Renaissance Hotel, he was determinedly shoving aside the questions. He was sick and bloody tired of them, and he felt a thousand years old and ready to be through with it. Not that you could tell. He hadn't really aged since he'd come back from Neverland; after three centuries stuck fast, his body likely didn't yet remember how. But get this done, get the information as to how to get to Storybrooke, and then –

And then, he looked up.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh Jesus bloody Christ, no. No. _No._

It was. It _was._

It was her.


	20. Chapter 20

" _You."_ The word burst from Emma's throat before she could stop it. She should have said something, anything else, but the shock screaming up every pore and nerve of her body hadn't left much time for careful reflection. She was suddenly and hideously conscious of the earrings recording everything, how James had already been snooping around to see if she still consorted with crooks, and had to fight a mad urge to tear them off and crush them beneath her Christian Louboutin heel. Not for his protection, God no, but for hers. Her hands balled into fists, her voice came out as a strangled hiss. _"What the fuck are you doing here?"_

Killian Jones looked just as flattened. For several excruciating moments, he had nothing whatsoever to say, clever or otherwise. Then he took half a step. "You've spilled your drink."

Emma glanced down and realized it was true; there was a spreading stain on her red dress where she must have upended the cocktail. She hadn't even noticed until he pointed it out, but her cheeks flared hotly at the way the wet fabric clung to her thigh, and the way, under his eyes, she felt as if she was wearing nothing at all. And with that, she went ahead and fucking broke the cardinal rule of tracking down a perp: once you have him in your sights, never turn your back on him for any reason. But she shoved to her feet and teetered away, diving into the ladies' room in the marble hallway behind. Thank God it was empty except for her; she dabbed at the wetness with a wad of paper towels, her breathing short and sharp, and wasn't surprised when a beep echoed from the earring transmitter. The team was asking if she was in distress.

With shaking fingers, Emma reached up and flicked the switch. "Hey," she whispered furtively. "I'm in the ladies. He's in the bar. I – I know him. Can give you his real name. It's Killian Jones. He's a professor at Oxford University in England. He taught at BC briefly when I was a sophomore there, before I transferred."

Clicking and typing followed. "Good girl," the agent's voice crackled. "You going to be okay to handle this? Sounded like it was a bit of a shock."

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm – I'm looking forward to it." Emma stared at herself in the mirror under the softly glowing lights; her face was as white as snow, her made-up eyes dark as two pits. She mounted one last effort at drying her dress, then spun around. "I'm heading back now."

"Roger. We're running the background checks. Soon as we hear anything that sounds like a confession, we're moving in."

"Roger," Emma muttered, switching off. They could still hear her, but she couldn't hear them, and swallowed heavily, three times, before she opened the bathroom door. Shit. She'd probably blown it to hell. As soon as she bolted, he must have realized that his cover was shot and likewise booked it. _She_ wouldn't wait around for her to come back, knowing what had happened. He was probably halfway up Congress Street trying to flag a cab, get the hell out of –

He was still standing exactly where she had left him, still with that expression as if she'd clubbed him on the head, and as she strode up, he turned to her. "Emma – Miss Swan, we have a great deal to discuss, I – "

"Yeah, I'd say we do." Emma slid back into her chair and raised a hand for the bartender. "Two. One for me, one for my friend here."

Clearly, that was not the outcome the bartender (who must have witnessed all sorts of alcohol-fueled romantic drama) had been expecting, but he nodded gamely and began to mix two cocktails. _And it's not romantic. Fuck._ As he handed the glass to her, Emma took a slug long enough to burn her throat, then turned back to Killian, who had likewise downed half of his as if in recognition that a stiff drink was the only way to get through this. "So," she said, low and hard, even as she couldn't stop herself from fiddling with the earring. "Start talking."

His dark blue eyes flicked to it, then her face. He polished off his drink with one more pull, then shoved it back for a refill. He was Irish; he could probably hold his liquor. "I'm sorry, Emma."

"What?"

"What you said to me, the last we met. It's true. I wronged you, and there's no getting around it. No excuses." He met her gaze. "You have every right to be angry with me."

At that, Emma had to toss down her own drink like a shot. "More," she ordered tersely, as the bartender passed Killian's glass back. He gave them both a curious glance, doubtless wondering if he was going to have to call security to peel them off the floor at last call, but complied. It wasn't until Emma had her own glass in hand again, fingers clenched around the stem so hard that she thought she was going to shatter it, that she felt up to continuing. "So. You're here. Just to apologize for whatever the hell you did to me, or something else?"

Killian's eyes closed off as if someone had slammed the storm shutters. "My business."

"Yeah?" Emma whispered, leaning closer. "One moment you're apologizing, the next you're telling me to fuck off? Not sure what you think you're doing, but it might be something for you to look into."

"Tough lass." He regarded her intently, one dark eyebrow cocked, staring into her face as if to riddle out who she'd become since their last meeting, and how. "And it hasn't struck you that if you so ardently desire to hear my secrets, then fair's fair, as goes for me in regards to you. Eh?"

Emma flinched. "That is none of your business."

"Ah, I see. You're afraid to talk, to reveal yourself. But no matter. At the moment, you're something of an open book."

" _Really?_ And how do you work that one out, Nostradamus?"

"This is a bit public for such a conversation, wouldn't you say?" Killian cut his eyes at a dim back corner of the bar, with a pair of empty chairs. "Over there, perhaps?"

Fine. If it was going to keep him talking, she could go with it. Emma gathered her purse off the bar, threw down the last of her drink, and followed him to the corner, reflexively scouting out escape routes. At least there wasn't anywhere for him to make a break for it either, and if he did try, she could probably take him down beforehand. She sank into the chair and eyed him suspiciously; he was still standing. "Well?"

He shrugged. Then, instead of taking the other seat, he moved closer, knelt in front of her, and leaned in. Before she had time to do anything at all besides suck in a shocked gasp, his mouth touched her cheek, browsing up her jaw and leaving the faintest suggestion of kisses, his face against hers, their noses brushing, her blood rushing a thousand degrees too hot under her breakable skin. She was a big girl, a grownup, an undercover agent; if she had wanted him to stop, it would have been the easiest thing to shove him away and stab him through the eyeball with her stiletto. But even worse, she didn't, she wanted –

Fuck! No! _No!_ She had not allowed him to spirit her off here to seduce her, to make her forget about what she –

Killian's mouth reached her ear, and she felt his tongue lightly flick against the lobe. Then with his teeth, he delicately pulled out the bugged earring and drew it down the smooth bare flesh of her throat and collarbone, light as a whisper, whereupon he dropped it into her cleavage. Emma felt it slide down her dress and land somewhere around her stomach, where his hand was already resting, his mouth pressing a searing kiss between her breasts. Just as she was either about to pass out, which was bad, or grab his head and drag it down to hers, which was worse, she regained her senses and pushed him away so hard that he fell back onto his elbows. "What – _the hell –_ are you – doing?"

He grinned. It was far less gentlemanly than before. "Ensuring a private conversation, just as I said. What did you think?"

"What – what did you, how in the – " Emma's face – no, entire body – was on fire, and not just from humiliation. She fumbled for the earring, trying to extract it from her dress, conscious of his eyes drinking in her every move, but only succeeded in getting it snagged on her panties. Like hell she was going to stick a hand up there with him watching, but she had a feeling that he wasn't about to let her flee to the bathroom again. "The hell do you think – "

"Again. As I said." Killian got to his feet with a fluid, quick motion, sleek and graceful as a hunting cat – and as lethal as one, too. "Open book."

Emma wasn't sure how much of this conversation the earring was still picking up; aside from it being down her dress, he was speaking in a husky whisper, making her want to lean closer. That was plainly his intention. How the hell had he known? But the only way to play this was by the same rules – which was to say, none. She took a step and grabbed his wrists, pulling his arms away from his body and pressing her hips to his, walking them back to the wall and pinning him against it. "All right, smart guy," she breathed. He had an earring as well, a silver teardrop, and she worked it loose with her teeth, vaguely aware that this was definitely nowhere in the crook-catching handbook, and if the bug was still recording, it was getting either a very confusing or very scandalous earful. She'd worry about that later. "Who are you here to kill?"

He jerked, but it was hard to say whether it was because she'd fingered him or because, well, she'd fingered him; her hand was low on his belt, thumb hooked through it to pull herself closer, until she could feel a hardness that definitely did not belong to the proverbial gun in the pocket grinding between her legs through her still-damp dress. Thinking it her civic duty to assist him in having as little blood in his head as possible, thus to bamboozle him into a confession, she slid a hand beneath his trouser waistband and browsed a kiss up his jaw to his ear, whereupon she whispered, "Do you really want to see what happens if you don't start talking, by the time I get to. . . hmm?"

Instead of answering, Killian moaned. Then he wrapped his arms around her waist and hitched her up, his knee sliding between hers. "Do you. . . really. . . want to do that, love?"

"Yes," Emma informed him. "I really think I do."

She thought he might have shrugged, but as she was moving to nip his ear again he turned, and she caught his mouth instead. They dove into each other as if into a well of cool deep water, as if they were dying of thirst, twisted up and entangled against the wall with hands and lips going God knew where, praying that the bartender didn't choose this moment to come check on them, kissing until her mouth was wet and swollen and bruised with the heat and insistence of his, until her legs were practically around his waist – until she heard a muffled beep from her dress and with a final, lingering kiss, he pulled back and wiped his mouth. "And with that, darling," he said, still panting, "I'll be taking my leave. Good night."

"Oh _no."_ Emma, still reeling, lunged after him. She knew just as well what that beep meant: the team hadn't heard from her in too long, and they were moving in. _Damned_ if she was going to let him escape now. She ripped her purse open, removed the revolver, and cocked and aimed it in one swift motion. "Don't take another _step."_

He grew very still, as any halfway sane person would do with a sight trained dead on his chest. "Put the gun down, Emma."

"Why?"

"We both know you're not going to shoot me."

"Really?" Her finger tightened on the trigger. Out of all the people who'd left her, he was the only one who'd ever come back – but what the hell did that count for anything? He hadn't come back for her. He was a loose cannon, dark and dangerous, clearly out for himself and no one else. "Give me one good reason."

He smiled faintly. "You're not a killer, Emma."

"The hell do you know? About me, about anything? About what's happened?" Oh God no, her voice had not just cracked. "But maybe I don't need answers. Maybe I just need to punch you in the face."

"If it makes you feel better, than by all means. But with a fist, not a bullet, if you'd be so kind." Killian's eyes flickered behind them. "You'll have to be quick, though. Unless I much miss my guess, those would be your friends coming to join us, and I don't intend to stay for the party."

Emma looked up with a jerk. Sure enough, she could see the four agents striding through the bar; they were dressed in plainclothes, but she knew what they were packing. She stood frozen, unable to decide whether to wave at them and shout, or to shove Killian away and hiss at him to get out of here. And in that critical moment of indecision, he moved.

He dodged out of the way of her gun and around the corner of the bar. He was trying to run without appearing to run, but they'd taken notice of him and were closing fast. As Killian swerved through the crowd, he brushed casually by the fireplace – it was the dog days of summer, it wasn't lit, but he snatched up the poker. And then, he spun around just in time to take on the first agent, who had been unholstering a stun baton and handcuffs.

The entire lobby turned to stare, aghast, as Killian knocked the baton away with a swift, contemptuous stroke, and slashed back to block the second agent's attempted hammerlock. Emma had never seen anything remotely like it. These were trained marshals used to physically confronting and apprehending dangerous criminals, but Killian fought like. . . strange as it sounded, the only word that came to mind was _pirate._ No showy twirls, no stage parries, nothing but brutally hard and ruthless skill, knowing that it was either him or the other bastard. The poker flashed in his hand like a sword as he fended off the third; the fourth was already on the radio, bellowing for backup. The hotel guests were fleeing en masse, and Killian cut his way to the doors just as red and blue lights screeched up outside. Emma stood almost forgotten in the chaos, until one of the agents grabbed her by the arm. "You hurt? He hurt you?"

"No," Emma gasped. "No, I'm fine."

"Jesus Christ. That guy is fucking _crazy._ Jesus, I hope James didn't know that, otherwise someone should cut his balls off for sending you into this situation as your first. Jesus. Motherfucker could have killed you."

 _I was closer to killing him._ The agent wanted to give Emma an arm, but she shook it off as they emerged into the sea of flashing lights in front of the Renaissance, holding their badges high. "Hey!" her companion bellowed at the nearest officer. "Catch him?"

"No. Slipped the cordon somehow. Slick son of a bitch. Already sent half the department off to search. We'll find him." The young policeman wiped his brow. "Fuck, this is going to be a mess. PR disaster. The hell he armed with?"

"A poker. Fucking fireplace poker. Used it like a sword, though. Never seen anybody fight like that. Shamrock, huh?" The agent glanced at Emma. "What you say his real name was, again?"

"Killian." She felt as if she'd been hit herself. "Killian Jones."

"Killian Jones." The agent blew out a breath. "Well, he sure didn't act like a guy with nothing to hide back there. Hey, I think you've done enough for the night. How about I take you home? We'll be in touch when there's something to know."

Emma opened her mouth to protest – and then, looking at his face, realized that it would be useless. She shut it, and followed him.

* * *

After sweeping the car and the surrounding area to be sure that the fugitive hadn't holed up in either, Emma was conducted home and up the stairs to her apartment, with the agent assuring her that proper precautions would be taken to keep the place under surveillance, in case "our friend" decided to come back and pay a call. Then, after the rest of her questions had been shot down like a Black Hawk, she bid him good night, headed inside, and bolted the door.

Her adrenaline was still pumping, and even though she undressed and crawled into bed, she couldn't sleep. Every so often, she heard sirens go by outside, and wondered if it was part of the manhunt or just the usual late-night sounds of a big city. Fuck. The policeman was right. What a great fucking way for her first assignment to go. No matter what excuses she wanted to drape over her failure, the fact was that her emotions had blinded her, and she'd made a series of poor decisions that she wouldn't have made if it was someone else she was chasing. And Killian Jones, like the clever bastard he was, had taken advantage of it. If she'd ever been entertaining any ridiculous delusions that he was safe, that he was someone she could trust. . .

Emma tossed and turned under the sheets, starting at small noises, and was finally startled out of a turgid doze shortly past seven AM by her phone bleeping insistently. She grabbed it and held it up to her face, blinking blearily. _James work._ Fuck.

Emma punched the answer key and held it to her ear, throwing an arm over her face. "Hey."

"Hey. You awake?"

"Yeah. Now I am."

"Sorry." James didn't wait for an answer. "Can you get dressed and come down to the office?"

A block of solid ice slid into Emma's stomach. "I. . . look, James, I'm really sorry, I know this is on me, I didn't – just. . . am I in trouble?"

"How about you come down here, and we'll talk about it."

 _I'm in trouble._ Feeling nauseous, Emma killed the call with her thumb and hauled herself out of bed. She dressed in double-quick time, barely noticing what she threw on; her heart was going a million miles an hour as she jogged out into the humid Boston summer morning. It didn't _look_ as if it had come apart at the seams; everything was normal as she boarded the T and rode downtown. _Fuck._ How bad was this going to be? Were they going to fire her? What did she do if they did, go back to working at Subway? She couldn't afford her apartment on a minimum-wage salary, much less anything else. Back to Cambridge and the cats? Please no.

Her throat was parched as she exited the train and trotted the few blocks to the office. No police barriers or roadblocks; they hadn't shut the city down or anything. Maybe she was just looking for desperate reasons to hope that this wouldn't be as bad as she thought.

Dreading every second, Emma swiped herself into ATF headquarters and took the elevator up to James' office. It looked out toward the harbor; you could see the _USS Constitution_ at its moorings, the city waking up slowly in the steamy August heat. As usual, though, James had the AC cranked high, and for more reasons than that, she was shivering as she tapped on his door. "Hey. Um. It's me."

"Emma." James removed his reading glasses and swiveled around. "Take a seat."

She did, folding her hands tightly in her lap. Her stomach was churning and she was glad she hadn't had time to grab anything to eat; this sounded an awful lot like the prelude to a firing to her. The one thing about this job was that if you fucked up, it wasn't just a few points on the stock market or a bad performance review from corporate. People's lives were at stake, their safety and the city's safety, and James wasn't running a charity; he didn't have time to fuck around when lunatics were running loose. If he canned her ass, he'd be entirely justified.

"So. Yeah." James rubbed the bridge of his nose. Behind him on the computer screen, she could see that he had the Boston Globe website open; "Terrifying Scene At Downtown Hotel" was the lead story, emblazoned in two-inch letters. "You want to talk to me about what happened last night?"

Emma cleared her throat painfully and tried to think how to begin. She told him everything she could think of, but still recognized that she was being less than entirely truthful; she didn't mention the kissing, that she had pretty much let Killian get away by freezing at the crucial moment, and she couldn't tell what James thought. His face remained inscrutable. When she finished, he removed a small black device from a file folder on his desk and pushed play.

Emma's cheeks turned molten as she realized that it was the recording from her earring bug. She could hear her own voice, shocked – _"You. . . what the fuck are you doing here" –_ and Killian Jones' measured answer, _"You've spilled your drink."_ The conversation proceeded clearly until the moment that he must have pulled the earring out and dropped it down her chest; from there it turned muffled, staticky, and indistinct, so most of the actual words weren't comprehensible. But the gasping, passionate, wet noises that followed didn't need much explaining.

James played it until the distant sounds of shouts and scuffling became audible, clearly when Killian had decided to make a break for it. Then he switched it off, leaned back in his chair, and steepled his fingers. "So."

"What – what happened to not prying into my personal life, huh?" Emma said weakly.

James laughed. "This is a little different, rookie. I get the honeytrap trick, believe me. But what I just heard didn't sound like that. Still, though. There's some interesting stuff we've turned up on this guy. For example, two years ago when you were in the hospital, are you aware that he came to the force's attention by claiming that he knew who had poisoned you?"

Emma's back snapped straight. _"What?"_

"Yeah. Interesting, huh? According to the file, he said that he was going to lead the officers to a place called Storybrooke, Maine, but of course, there is no such town. So far as I can tell, that looks to be exactly the time your parents disappeared. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this stinks like three-day-old fish, and I need you to think very hard. Is there anywhere else you know Killian Jones from? Does the name Storybrooke mean anything to you?"

Emma concentrated desperately, but could only come up with a headache. "No."

James kept watching her. "How about your parents? Anything about them?"

"No. Look, I told you, I'm a foster kid, I never had them, I – "

"According to the report, their names are David and Mary Margaret Nolan. Ring any bells?"

A jolt shot through Emma's stomach as she suddenly remembered a conversation two years ago in London, on the subway with her former roommate, Wendy. "Someone. . . someone else told me that those were their names, yes," she admitted grudgingly, "but how can that – "

"I'll make this simple. When people who really should look for you don't come looking for you, there's usually two answers. One, they don't give a shit, which seems unlikely in this case. Two, they permanently can't. In other words, they're dead."

"And – " It began to fall horrifyingly into place. "You think this guy – Killian – he killed them, and then lied to the police about this whole wild goose chase in hopes of throwing them off the scent?" _Did he poison me too?_ Jesus Christ, who _was_ this maniac?

"I think it's not at all out of the question. I'm sorry for springing it on you in this way, but you had to know."

"But then. . ." Emma looked up at him wildly. "How in the hell is this even possible? I mean. . . come on. How can I possibly have this entire memory of my life, of _knowing_ that my parents were never there, that I grew up completely alone, and – and everything? I'm not crazy. I don't feel crazy. How can I just be. . . not who I am?"

"No idea." James shrugged. "A curse?"

He said it more than half facetiously, but it made Emma's stomach freeze solid. For the first time since she'd met August W. Booth – rather, since he'd invaded her life and she'd done her best to invade him out of it again _tout suite_ – she was seriously forced to consider if there might actually be some merit to his whole crazy theory. But how? _How?_ Had something truly changed in her forever when she went into the hospital? She had been drugged or something, she'd almost died, she'd been in a coma. . . she'd been convinced that she'd had a baby, but everyone had told her that she never had. . . and then in Oxford when she'd actually met him, the unlived son, the shadow that wanted her to steal away with him. . . she'd dismissed that long ago as just a weird nightmare, a fevered dream. . . _Neverland,_ come on. . .

"You've got a funny look on your face," James observed. "Want to say something?"

"I just. . ." Emma shook her head. "No. I. . . I'm guessing we haven't caught him yet?"

"Your special friend, Killian Jones? No. We've been in touch with the FBI and the Border Patrol, though – there's a federal warrant out for his arrest, and if he tries to flee the country, we're going to know about it. We've checked him out, and indeed, he's a professor at Oxford. Originally from Drogheda, a little town in Ireland. We're seeing what else we can dig up about his extracurricular activities, so to speak, and if we can gather some solid evidence, we may get Interpol involved. Not sure if there might be an IRA connection."

 _FBI. Border Patrol. Interpol. IRA._ The words crashed through Emma like sledgehammers, landing deep in the pit of her stomach. "So," she squeaked. "Are you. . . firing me?"

James cocked his head. "What? Hell no. Actually, if anyone should be fired, it's me. I thought this was going to be a run-of-the-mill bust to get you into the swing of things, and it turns out this guy is a bona fide madman. I sent you into serious danger before you were ready for it, and that's on me. But for obvious reasons, we can't have you working the case anymore. You may be one of the key witnesses if we can put the pieces together, and we're looking into getting you into a protection program. So you'll be on indefinite furlough. Fully paid," he added, seeing her face. "We'll have agents at your place, but I advise you to keep a low profile."

Emma let out a slow breath. She wasn't fired, and yet, it wasn't entirely what she wanted either. Still, it seemed cheap to complain. "Got it."

James took another long look at her. "You okay?"

Emma nodded.

"You sure?"

Emma nodded again.

"Okay. You're tough as nails, I can say that for you – I'm not sure that everyone would have gotten through that the same way you did. Don't worry. We've got a lot of top people on this case, and we expect a break soon. Just a few weeks, I'm guessing. Take up a hobby. Do crosswords, play Powerball, learn French, something. You'll be back before you know it."

Emma nodded a third time. "Okay," she echoed, as if that would make it so. "Okay."

* * *

It didn't make it so.

Her apartment wasn't nearly big enough to accommodate all the restless rambling she wanted to do, and she probably shouldn't give her protection detail a heart attack by wandering all over Boston, as she'd done often when she was living in the hostel or the Bug. Finally, just to stop her head from exploding, she opened her laptop, surfed to Google, and searched for _**August W Booth.**_

She was fully expecting to turn up nothing – mysterious guys liked to be mysterious and cover their mysterious tracks – but to her vast surprise, she did. It turned out he was a writer, had published several books with a fairly well-known New York house, and there was even some buzz about him in literary circles. His debut novel, _The Real Boy,_ was a modern noir retelling of the Pinocchio fairy tale; in it, Pinocchio was an adult, a guilt-ridden bad boy fighting against this world's temptations of sex, drugs, and money, as well as trying to find his missing, estranged father before he turned back into wood. It had been hailed as "darkly imaginative" and "seductively powerful" by some semi-famous critic, and it had a decent sales ranking on Amazon. The author photo was definitely him. She'd know that scruff anywhere.

Emma considered, then clicked over to his most recent book, _Once Upon A Time._ It took place in the same fractured fairy-tale universe as _The Real Boy,_ but the protagonist in this one was named Anna, the long-lost daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. According to the promotional blurb, Anna was a tough loner, a girl who'd grown up never knowing who she was, a girl who nonetheless had a destiny. To break a terrible curse, and save the little town of. . .

Hold on a _fucking_ second.

Emma could have ordered it from Amazon, but that would take too long. She felt like she'd just knocked back eight shots of espresso; she shoved back from the computer and grabbed her purse, then rattled down the stairs and out the door, powering a few blocks down the street to the indie bookstore and café where she liked to spend her off days. She enquired of the helpful clerk, headed straight back to the fiction section, and twenty minutes later, had a crackling new copy of _Once Upon A Time_ in her hot little hands, which she forked her credit card over to pay for in total distraction. She tucked it under her arm and beat feet back to her apartment.

Emma grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge, settled on the couch, and opened the book. Whereupon she did not get up again for the next five hours, reading until it began to get dark and she had to turn on the lights. By then she just had a few dozen pages left, so she finished it. Then for the longest time, she sat completely immobile, struggling to breathe.

If August had been writing from a newspaper record of her own life, he couldn't have done it any better. The similarities were so eerie that Emma seriously wondered if he'd been stalking her for decades – in details both large and small, he seemed to have simply cribbed from her. _Maybe I could sue him for a cut of the profits?_ Seriously. How the hell. How the _hell._

At last, the exploding sensation in her bladder necessitated a bathroom break, and she got up and attended to the necessities, head still spinning. Much as she would give anything not to admit it, August W. Booth was apparently deadly accurate in – in something. Either that or he just couldn't tell where the line between story and reality was, had modeled his protagonist on her and was following her around trying to make her life turn out like Anna's. Which was really fucking creepy; it sounded like the kind of guy who would dress up in his dead mother's clothes and keep glassy-eyed voodoo dolls in his basement. And if so –

At that moment, from the living room, Emma heard a crash.

She spun around, heart overloading, and grabbed the nearest weapon to hand – which happened to be the plunger. _Yeah, that's really scary._ But she advanced with it brandished before her, like Captain Underpants or something. "Hey! _Hey!"_

But when she leaped into the room, ready to disembowel somebody with a toilet appliance, there was nothing there. Just the window, curtains fluttering in the evening breeze – but had she left it open? It was so hot right now that she kept the place shut up and the air conditioner on, and she advanced on it, wondering how someone had gotten up to the second story – there was no fire escape or anything leading from the window, and nobody in sight when she stuck her head out. Not unless they could fucking fly.

Unbidden, unwanted, she thought of the shadow again. The boy in green, who'd crept to her window in Oxford. _I've been looking for you, Emma. I want you to come with me._

No. That had been two years ago, and just a dream. She hadn't been in a good place then, emotionally and mentally fragile, and she pushed away the surge of desperate longing that the memory evoked in her. _Henry._ She'd created him from hallucinations and grief and the unsettling realization that she was staying with _the_ Darling family. She'd been sick. That was all.

That was all.

* * *

Emma ordered a pizza for delivery and ate it sprawled on the couch, watching the Red Sox game with half an eye. She was going to go crazy if she had to stay on virtual house arrest much longer – why couldn't they just catch Killian Jones already? The sooner she knew he was locked away for good, the safer she'd feel. There was definitely no desire in her to find where he'd gone, to warn him, or even to see if he was being set up, that he hadn't in fact killed her parents because her parents weren't there to kill. None at all. He wasn't being framed. That was just paranoia. He'd probably got himself into every inch of this. He'd –

Her phone began to buzz in her pocket, once more scaring her inordinately, and Emma had to swallow her heart back down from her throat before she could answer. It was James. "Hey."

"Hey. So. Probably going a little stir-crazy, huh?"

Emma barked a humorless laugh. "Just a little."

"Thought so. Okay. Well. The brass wants you out of the city for now. Can't say exactly why, they threw a bunch of operational jargon at me, but basically, there's been a development in the case and we want you in the protection program. Somebody's going to be coming by your apartment in the next hour. Just go with them and do what they say."

"What?" Emma muted the TV, scrambling upright. Her pizza was suddenly sitting like lead in her stomach. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," James confirmed. "Put together a bag, they're probably on their way."

"How long is this going to be for?"

"Honestly, I don't know. Just trust me, okay?"

 _Trust._ She fucking hated it whenever anyone asked that of her, when they didn't know what they were doing by throwing out that little five-little word like an atom bomb. She stared at the wall of her apartment, suddenly and desperately aware that she didn't want to leave. _I could make a run for it._ But that might turn her into a fugitive from justice as well, and then what would she do?

"Emma?" James was still waiting for an answer. "You hear me?"

No choice. She never had a choice. As much a prisoner as if she had in fact gone to jail.

"All right," she said bleakly. "Okay."

She got up. She pulled her suitcase out from under the bed and threw some clothes into it, toiletries, essentials, electronics – cell phone and laptop and chargers. What else would she need? How long was she going to be gone? Was this just a twenty-four hour thing until they were sure that they had him safely in custody, or was it going to be a longer stay? Undisclosed location or something? She wasn't exactly up on the drill of disappearing without a trace, even though she probably should be. So what? _What?_

It was fifty-three minutes since James' call, by her count, when a brisk knock echoed on her door. She tied her shoes, hefted her bag, and turned off the lights, drawing the curtains – and then, on a mad whim, grabbed _Once Upon A Time_ from the couch and stuffed it into a side pocket of the suitcase. Then she grabbed her purse and went to open the door –

And stopped.

"Hello, hon." Tamara smiled. She wasn't alone. Lacey was standing next to her, and Greg was behind them, car keys in hand. "Ready to go?"


	21. Chapter 21

"No." Emma dropped her bag and backed away, wanting to have her hands free and room to maneuver if, as she strongly suspected, things were about to get very interesting. "No thanks. I'm not going _anywhere_ with you yahoos."

"Why?" Tamara's bafflement was evident and, by every appearance, genuine. "What are you talking about? We're here to take you to safety, just as ordered."

 _Did James really send them?_ It was completely against policy, mind-bogglingly careless, or both, for him to entrust her to a pair of freelance security contractors (if that was even what Tamara and Lacey were) instead of their own people. From what Emma had observed of her boss, he seemed both conscientious and dedicated to his job – kind of an arrogant prick at times, sure, but find her a guy in this line of work who wasn't. She didn't, couldn't believe that he would have purposefully endangered her, and by extension a huge case, for no apparent reason. And if Tamara and her cronies had somehow infiltrated the system, stealthily taking over the actual agents' place or whatever in God's name they were doing. . . well, they weren't here to sell Girl Scout cookies. That was for damn sure.

Emma continued to stand rooted to the floor. "I want to see some identification."

Tamara smiled faintly. "You don't need to see our identification."

"Are you for fucking real? Jedi mind tricks don't work on me. I said ID and I said now." Oh God, where was her gun? Unloaded in its carrying case at the bottom of her suitcase, naturally. In default of which, she dove for her cell phone, but was intercepted by Lacey. Which gave Emma, as if she needed it, the final certainty of their nefarious intentions. Oh, now they'd done it. Shit was going _down._

Emma braced, met the other woman head-on, and after a few moments of wrestling, got Lacey's arm twisted in a judo hold, slamming her down on her knees. But then Greg was coming for her as well, and Emma had to let go, jabbing her fingers into his eyes with one hand and throwing a hard right hook with the other. While his skull was still ringing, she swept his legs out from under him, dumping him on his ass, and applied similar measures to Lacey as she tried to get up. Then in the instant of time this bought her, Emma clawed for her phone, trying to hit the button to call James back. All she needed was a second, then –

The shock of blazing blue energy took her blindsided, coruscating and cartwheeling down her body, her suddenly nerveless, spasming limbs. Her phone slid out of her reach, her salvation vanished, as Tamara stood above her, pointing some kind of handheld Taser until smoke was billowing out of Emma's ears and she writhed and thrashed as if she was, in fact, being electrocuted. Then Tamara clicked the beam off, helped Greg and Lacey up, and said with a sigh, "I promise you, it did _not_ need to be that hard. Especially seeing as we're doing you a favor. Come on. We're wasting time."

Emma was powerless to resist as they duct-taped her mouth and wrists, hoisted her like a dead log, and carried her down the stairs. She kept trying to make some noise, to cause one of the other neighbors to look out, but couldn't. They issued out to the alley, where a silver Lexus hitched to a U-Haul trailer was waiting, and that jogged her memory. Two years ago, an ambush outside the Boston College train station late at night, right before August swooped in to rescue her, a guy and a girl – she was now willing to bet Fort Knox that the girl had been Tamara, but she didn't think the guy had been Greg. Someone else. And she thought she knew who.

Oh God. _He_ must be in on this. Killian Jones. Suddenly, this all made horrifying sense. They were working for him, had bugged or spied or tapped the ATF offices somehow, realized that Emma could bring him down, and were acting to remove her before she could testify against whatever organized crime syndicate they were running – the next stop was definitely the Charles River, a black garbage bag, and a brick. She had to get out of this, now. It would help if she could even fucking feel her feet, and she struggled not to choke on her panic.

Emma jerked and twitched uselessly as they loaded her into the boot of the Lexus, tied her down, and threw a dark blanket over her. She heard her own phone ring, and Tamara answered it, reporting matter-of-factly that they'd retrieved her and were taking her to the safe house, going "off the grid" for extra precautions. Then Emma heard a wheedle, a clatter, and a faint splash as Tamara hung up, powered the phone off, and threw it down a sewer.

The conspirators got into the car. The engine started up under Emma's ear, and she realized that she wasn't going to escape this now. Her only chance was to try to fight her way free when they untied her and took her out to kill her. She lay like a broken puppet, every nerve screaming _–_ it wouldn't be that far to a suitably remote place to do the deed. Oh God, what if they weighed her down and dumped her into the river _alive?_ That way, sometime in the future when the forensics investigators or just a hapless fisherman dredged up whatever was left of her, there would be no incriminating things like bullet holes or stab wounds. She'd still fairly obviously have been murdered, but it would be a tough row to hoe, nothing to connect anyone. Into the unsolved cases file, fodder for true-crime shows. She could all too well imagine drowning, suffocating, in the black and cold and mud and murk, down and down and down.

Emma's adrenaline was overloading her system, but they didn't stop. Instead they kept driving, until she was certain that they must be well out of Boston. The city lights had dwindled; it was only the night, the low drone of the air conditioning, and her captors' voices. Emma listened as hard as she could. Tamara was driving, and someone – probably Greg, since he kept reading aloud from it – was paging through some kind of book or binder. It sounded like academic research, but not any kind of academic research Emma had ever heard. Most of it was completely incomprehensible, but her ears pricked up when Greg said, "So according to Jones, this kind of curse _will_ have a failsafe, a self-destruct trigger. You think that's what H.O. is after?"

"Probably." Tamara sounded irritated. "I don't see why it should be other than a routine job, frankly, but this case has been kicking our butts. There's something else about Storybrooke that we need to look into, and now that we finally have her, we can't go in there off our guard."

 _Jones._ Emma wanted to be sick. Jesus, they _were_ in it together. Probably August as well, to judge from the book he'd written – _Once Upon A Time,_ set in Storybrooke, Maine, that book with its protagonist so uncannily like her. Some kind of gruesome conspiracy that went far further than Emma's abused brain could possibly riddle out. But this was getting much too complicated for a simple plan to ice her and make her disappear just so she couldn't testify in a court case. If so, they could have done that already. So what were they up to? _What?_

Time blurred and jarred away. Despite herself, Emma must have fallen into a troubled doze, because when she opened her eyes again, the car had stopped and her arms and legs were burning with a thousand painful needles of returned sensation. She was still tied up in the boot, fiendishly sore, thirsty, cramped, and in desperate need of a pee, and strained to hear any sound, any hint, anything. Then the trunk clicked open, the blanket whisked away, a flashlight dazed her eyes, and Greg untied the ropes and hauled her out like a sack of flour.

"Do you recognize where we are?" It was Tamara's voice, somewhere behind the flashlight.

Emma wrenched her taped hands up to wipe her streaming eyes, and squinted. Some dark and quiet two-lane county highway, thickly wooded, deep in the boonies. "No."

"What about that?" Tamara pointed her flashlight.

A jolt went through Emma to the back of her spine. Just a green-and-white road sign, but not. _Welcome to Storybrooke._

Holy hell. It was here? It was real? Had they found it somehow, despite – or because – of her? Was she the key to something much larger, a campaign against the town itself? Every time she thought she got a handle on what was actually going on, the rug jerked out from under her.

"No," she lied, as convincingly as she could. Give her a few more minutes, and she might have her strength back. If she could just play dumb until then, she'd –

These incoherent scraps of a plan were brought up smartly short by something blunt jabbing into her back. Not a gun, but just as bad – the custom Taser Tamara had used to completely put her out of commission back in Boston. Except this time it was Lacey holding it, apparently nursing a grudge for Emma nearly breaking her arm, and in case she missed the point, Greg _was_ aiming a real gun. "Good. Let's go."

Emma was heaved back into the Lexus and spent a further fifteen minutes in a ripe stew of bewilderment and panic. Then they parked again, and when she was extracted this time, they were on the main drag of some postcard-perfect New England hamlet. Dark and deserted, of course, but she could see a diner, an auto body place, a florist, a general store, a coffee shop, and some impressive building – maybe a library in a former life – with boarded-up windows and a clock tower. It was broken; she could tell by the fact that it was definitely not 8:15pm.

The institution they had pulled up next to, however, was none of these. _Mr. Gold, Pawnbroker._ Just as Emma finished thinking that she saw absolutely no reason to be visiting a pawnshop at three in the morning if not to perform a good old-fashioned smash and grab, Greg ripped the duct tape off her mouth, making her grimace and gag as he apparently took most of the skin with it. Then, handing his gun to Tamara to keep it trained on Emma's head, he strolled over to the U-Haul trailer, unlatched the door, and pulled it up.

Killian Jones was tied up inside.

If it had been the President of the United States, Emma could not possibly be more shocked. He was gagged with a white handkerchief, bound from chest to waist with rope – to judge from that and the bruises on his face, he had put up one hell of a fight. After seeing him with the poker in the hotel lobby, she wouldn't doubt it, but what the _fuck?_ Pretty much every police force in New England had been looking for this guy, and these three amateur chuckleheads had been able to just waltz in and take him down? Though there was nothing funny about that Taser. Were they not working for him after all? Was this some kind of setup to make her think that they were on different sides? But tying him up and stunning him seemed, once again, all out of proportion to the situation. Utterly and absolutely lost, Emma just gaped.

Jones hadn't seen her. He too was blinking like an owl against the flashlight, but as those astonishingly blue eyes focused on Tamara, they went as narrow and slitted as a snake's. "Pet." Even through the gag, it couldn't have sounded more threatening if he'd openly announced his intention to murder her.

"Captain." She smiled. "Don't look at me like that. If all goes well, you're mere moments away from your revenge. All you have to do is one small job."

"Somehow I doubt that."

Greg leaned in and cut the handkerchief, pulling it out of Jones' mouth. "It's true, _mate._ Not a whole lot for you to go back to at the moment, is there? Got the entire law looking for you. Hunted fugitive, huh? Might want to consider that."

At that, something clicked in Emma's head. How the agency had been made aware of "Shamrock" in the first place, the fact that Tamara and Greg had been able to intercept James' people (what the hell had happened to them?) and then conveniently filch the culprit. . . suddenly, she got it, and she looked wildly between the three of them. "Which one of you is the Librarian?"

Hearing her voice, Jones' head snapped in her direction. Likewise, he could not have looked more shocked to behold the Queen of England. _"Swan?_ Whatare _you_ doing here?!"

"Same as you, it looks like," Emma managed. "These assholes kidnapped us. Now, seriously. Who's the Librarian?"

Lacey smiled thinly. "Me."

"Dear little Belle?" Killian sat up straight, or as straight as he could with the ropes. "My, my. This is quite a transformation."

Emma stared at him. "So you do know them."

"Run into each other. Here and there." The captive made an attempt at an insouciant shrug, but his attention was still fixed on the terrible trio. "Since you've gone to all this touching trouble, I'll assume you have a good reason for it. So. What the bloody hell do you want with me?"

"We just want to offer you a job." Greg stepped back in. "We're going to go in there, and we're going to find out a specific piece of information from the crocodile. Where something is. Then you're going to get it. You and her." He jerked his head at Emma. "Then we're going to use it. Your quest for vengeance could be over before dinnertime tonight. Everyone goes home happy."

"That's absolutely fascinating." Killian Jones could not have sounded more bored if Greg had been reading tax records, but a hungry, animal glint had sparked in his eyes, and it made him more than a little terrifying. It was almost as if Emma could see the shroud of darkness settling over him, changing him, transmogrifying him. "Why do I get the impression, however, that it may just neglect to be so simple?"

"Maybe it is. We have a deal?"

A pause. Then Killian's twisted grin widened. "Aye. Untie me."

Greg stepped in and began to busily saw through the knot with a box cutter. It took a while, but they got him loose, and Killian emerged from the trailer with sore, stalking grace, rubbing his wrists to restore feeling. Emma kept several paces away from him, more on edge than ever. What was that about the two of them going to find something? What thing? What did it do? She remembering hearing Greg and Tamara talking in the car about a failsafe, a trigger. . . but what the fuck was this, about vengeance? Dear God, they were all crazy. Maybe if they left her out here. . . she wondered how far she could run before they. . .

"Come on." Tamara jabbed the butt of the Taser into Emma's back.

Emma, swallowing a baleful retort, nonetheless had no choice but to obey. The five of them marched up to the dark front door of the pawn shop, and Killian cocked his head critically. "Is he even bloody here?"

"He's going to be in a few minutes." Greg handed the gun to Lacey, slipped on black gloves, produced a crowbar from somewhere about his person, and smashed the glass pane with two matter-of-fact blows. Then, as alarms started to shrill, he reached in, unlocked the door from the inside, and swung it open to admit them.

It was dark, cluttered, and noisy inside, due to the continued racket of the alarm. Emma winced and tried to cover her ears, but her wrists were still taped, and she couldn't. Blinking hard to adjust her eyes to the gloom, she could make out a glass counter, knickknacks and bric-a-brac of every description, antiques and lamps and jewelry, paintings and model ships and mobiles, a carved pirate and knight, display cases, swords, and more. The night had become so surreal that she could only go along with it, even if with a horribly growing certainty that she might not live to see the end. Could she find something in here to use a weapon – take Tamara off guard long enough to knock the Taser loose – though how she'd ever find her way out of this town or back to Boston was seriously up for grabs, probably get lost in the woods or be caught or –

It felt like a eternity, but was indeed perhaps only five minutes, until an old-fashioned black Cadillac pulled up outside with a screech. The dark silhouette of the driver leapt out, ran to the door, saw the broken glass – jerked it open with a violent curse, turned to key in the alarm override, then hit the lights and –

"Good morning." It was Lacey who spoke, stepping out and cocking the gun. "We've got a few questions for you."

The man in the doorway – Mr. Gold, Emma took a wild guess – was of inconsequent height, shaggy brown hair going grey, clad in his dressing gown and leaning on a cane. But his brown eyes were completely blank with shock as he stared at Lacey, seeming to see none of the other four intruders. His lips formed soundlessly around the name before he managed to utter it. "B. . . Belle?"

"I'm sorry. No one here named Belle." Lacey shrugged, the muzzle of the gun never wavering from where it was aimed at him. "We're in a hurry. Tamara?"

"Thank you, hon." The other woman smiled, then addressed herself coolly to the pawnbroker. "Where's the self-destruct for the curse?"

"I. . . what?" Gold had barely seemed to blink, to breathe, since he had seen Lacey – but why did everyone keep calling her Belle? "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't. You made the curse, you know everything about it. _Where is it?"_

"Who the hell are you?" Gold's attention was torn off Lacey long enough to stare Tamara and Greg down. " _Get out of my shop,_ before I – "

"Call the police?" Greg held up two cut, sputtering telephone wires. "Good luck with that."

"No, before I kill you all with my bare hands and keep the pieces for a midnight snack. You think you know who I am. Very well. But you don't. You have no _idea_ what you're dealing with." Gold stumped forward, cane pounding the floor. "So I'll thank you kindly to make this simple for myself and you, and – "

"And?" It was Tamara's turn to hold up something. Small, fragile. A chipped porcelain cup.

Gold grew very still. In its way, it was almost more threatening. "Give me that."

"You shouldn't leave valuables lying around." Tamara turned to Lacey, holding it out. "Do you recognize this?"

Lacey glanced at it, then shrugged. "No. Should I?"

"Belle. Belle, sweetheart." Gold's voice was openly imploring. He hadn't yet noticed Killian and Emma, lurking in the shadows at the back, and Emma, for her part, was perfectly content to keep it that way. Whoever this guy was, he scared her. Beside her, Killian hadn't moved or made a sound, staring at the other man with something almost alive in its malevolence, its complete, depthless hatred. As Gold repeated his entreaty, Killian's lips curled back over his teeth. It made him look downright demonic.

Emma tried to slide backwards as quietly as possible, away from the lot of them. There was a curtain nearby, presumably leading to a back room, and all she needed was a few moments. She rasped her wrists back and forth, but they'd used at least a dozen wraps of duct tape, and she couldn't get even a little slack. If she survived tonight, she was seriously considering getting some mundane rat-race job in a cubicle farm somewhere.

"Why do you keep calling me Belle?" Lacey's confusion and irritation was apparent. "Just tell us where the trigger for the self-destruct is, or. . ." She took a step and jammed the gun under Gold's chin.

"No. No, sweetheart, this isn't you." Gold pushed it aside, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. "I don't know what these people have done to you, but they'll suffer. Please. Belle. Look." He reached out with his free hand and took the chipped cup, closing her fingers around it. "It's you, it's your talisman. You brought me back when I was a monster. You remembered me when I couldn't. I want to do the same for you now. Belle. That was your name. A beautiful woman who loved an ugly man. Try, sweetheart. Please try. I. . . I know there's no magic here, but love is the most powerful magic of all."

Lacey flinched, but didn't pull away. Her fingers opened on the gun, and it clattered to the floor. She in turned seemed transfixed, transformed, as the entire shop held its breath, as she stared at the cup. Her face screwed up as if she was in physical pain, and her eyes fluttered closed. Then, slowly, they opened, and she raised them to his, teary and disbelieving. In the tiniest of voices, she breathed, "Rumple?"

"It's me. It's me, darling." Gold's tears began to overflow as he cupped her face in his hands, radiant with joy, resting their foreheads together. "It's me. You're back. You're safe. I won't ever let anyone hurt you again."

He leaned forward for a kiss, as Lacey – Belle – began to sob, wrapping her arms around his neck. And then, next to Emma, there was a blur of movement, a dark shape shoving Tamara and Greg aside, and the thunderous report of the gun, echoing like the breaking of the world in the small confines of the shop.

Belle remained standing, but her face turned pale and cold, even as a spreading red stain showed on the shoulder of her blue dress. Then she slumped forward against Gold, as the chipped cup fell to the floor and broke into a thousand pieces. As he shouted in horror, struggled to hold her up, she lost her balance and fell altogether, shoving at him and sobbing. "No – no, get away from me – what did you – _who are you,_ I don't know you, you're not – "

The pawnbroker seemed to look up in slow motion. Over her head, straight into the face of Killian Jones, still pointing the smoking pistol and grinning insanely. "I wouldn't count on it, crocodile."

" _You!"_ Gold laid Belle on the floor and straightened up, alive with madness. _"YOU!"_

"Me. You're losing your touch. Time was, you'd have known at once. You remember another morning duel, coward?" Killian's teeth were bared, his eyes aflame. "When you took everything from me? I hope you paid attention to how that felt just now, seeing her fall in your arms, leaving you, forgetting you. I hope you paid attention _bloody_ well. Now think about that, and I'm going to kill you." He cocked the gun again with a sinister clunk.

This was it. He was demented. He'd just shot a woman, was about to do worse – had played Tamara and Greg through and through. From the moment he'd seen Belle, he'd never meant to go along with whatever their original plan was. Had just agreed to get them to untie him. If it was true that they were the ones who'd framed him in the first place – but he _was_ a murderer, and she'd just seen indubitable proof –

And then, in that moment, Emma Swan acted.

She snatched up an umbrella stand, and lunged. Her swing was clumsy with her taped wrists, but good enough, and it took Killian Jones squarely in the back of the head, dropping him like a stone. She wrenched the gun from his hands, juggled it, snatched it, and used the instant of stunned silence to make a break for it, slamming past them and through the door.

Outside, frantic and breathless, she ran down the street into the residential neighborhood beyond, and up the porch of the first house she saw. She banged on the door until a sleepy householder answered. "Call 911!" she screamed in his face. "Call 911 right now!"

He was, naturally, shocked, but promptly complied, and in a few minutes more, the dark street was overrun with red and blue flashing lights as the police, ambulance, and several more emergency vehicles swerved into sight, setting up a cordon around the pawn shop before they went in. Belle came out on a stretcher, accompanied by Gold, and Greg and Tamara were marched out behind. And then, last, Killian Jones emerged in handcuffs, as the sheriff – a good-looking guy, younger than expected, with sandy curls – forced him into the cruiser and slammed the door.

As the sheriff was moving to get in himself, Emma ran after him. "Wait! Wait!" She grabbed his arm with almost hysterical strength. "My name is Emma Swan, I'm an ATF agent in Boston, those two – " she pointed at Greg and Tamara – "they kidnapped me from my apartment. I'm pretty sure the office is compromised somehow, but I need to contact my boss, I need to – "

"Whoa, whoa! It's all right. You're all right." Just then, glancing down, he saw her wrists, and his lips pressed into a thin line. Without another word, he pulled out his pocket knife and cut the tape off, detaching it carefully from her skin.

"Th – thank you." For the first time during the whole nightmarish ordeal, her voice started to shake. "I don't know, I – "

"It's all right," he said again, soothingly. "What did you say your name was, again?"

"Emma." She swallowed. "Swan."

A faint, startled look crossed his face, as if it was familiar, but he couldn't place it. "Sheriff Graham Humbert at your service. You're shivering." He pulled off his brown bomber jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. "I have to take this crazy bastard down to the station and get him booked, but I'll be back to talk to you. Tomorrow morning, likely. Now, how about you head back up there." He pointed to the house she'd run to. "The Nolans will take care of you."

 _Nolan?_ The name was another shock on a night already brimful with them. _No. Nothing. It's not that uncommon a name._ Nonetheless, Emma felt weak-kneed as Graham swung behind the wheel of the cruiser and pulled out, sirens blaring. She remained standing there until a woman came up and took her by the elbow. "Hon?"

Emma jumped and whirled to face her with an expression like a hunted animal.

"It's all right. Come inside." The woman led her up the steps, past the sign and the kitschy windmill in the front yard, and into the house. "I'm Kathryn, and this is my husband David. You're safe with us."

The man who'd called 911 for her was standing in the hall. "It gets pretty chilly up here at night, even in August," he said gently. "Can I make you something hot to drink?"

"S-sure. Thanks." Emma eased into a kitchen chair, still shaking. "Can I use your phone?"

Kathryn passed her the cordless, and she punched in the emergency number for the office. It rang and rang, but – completely bafflingly – nobody picked up.

David handed her a cup. Hot chocolate, with whipped cream and cinnamon. How had he known she liked it that way? "Everything okay?"

"Yeah. Fine." It wasn't. Somebody was supposed to man that line twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. Why was no one answering? It wasn't as if she'd dropped off the face of the planet, not like this place was cursed so nobody could find it and to all intents and purpose, it did not exist to the outside world. That was just part of whatever insanity Greg and Tamara had been cooking up, and as for them, they'd better be put away for a long fucking time. But instead of elaborating, Emma sipped her hot chocolate and tried not to stare.

 _David Nolan._ No. Still some kind of sick coincidence. This guy was too young to be her dad, and his wife's name was Kathryn, not Mary Margaret. It didn't mean anything. But as she kept looking and wondering, the hunger, the need, almost crushed her. She could no longer hold back. "Excuse me, this is a personal question. But do you. . . do you have. . . a daughter?"

David and Kathryn both looked surprised, then shook their heads. "No. We've tried, but it hasn't happened for us."

"Oh." Emma felt the small, stupid hope in her heart deflate as if punctured. _That answers that._ _See. Don't be an idiot._ "I'm sorry."

"It's all right. You're probably very tired. When you finish your drink, we have an extra room upstairs."

"Thank you. You've been very kind." In fact, Emma couldn't finish her hot chocolate; her throat was stuck shut. After a few more empty pleasantries, she stumbled upstairs, along the hall, and through the door that Kathryn indicated. There was something almost familiar about it, like walking through a time warp into your childhood room after years away, and it made more tears bubble to the surface, hard as she tried to scrub them away. She undressed, crawled into bed, and took a deep breath of the pillow. It even smelled like the shampoo she'd used as a teenager.

She closed her eyes. Sleep claimed her before they got all the way there.

* * *

Emma slept as if she'd been concussed, and awoke late the next morning, with sunlight streaming through the gauzy white curtains and a hesitant knocking on the door. "Emma? Miss Swan? Are you awake? The sheriff's here to talk to you."

Quite disappointed that last night had not been a dream, but relieved that she hadn't been snatched away by gremlins or something, Emma sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Yeah. I'm – I'm awake. I'm coming."

She swung over her legs over the side of the bed and dressed quickly, knotting her unwashed hair into a slapdash ponytail and grabbing the brown jacket off the chair where she'd dropped it. Then she padded down the creaking stairs and beheld the sheriff – Graham – waiting in the foyer with hands clasped behind his back, like an old-fashioned schoolboy about to recite. At the sound of her steps, he turned toward her and smiled, almost shyly. "Good morning, Miss Swan."

"Good morning." Her mouth was dry. She foisted his jacket back at him like a shield, warding him off. She could already tell that she couldn't let him any closer. "Thanks for the loan."

"No problem at all." He took it back and folded it over his arm. "I was hoping to ask you a few questions about last night."

"Great. I've got a fuck-ton myself."

"Take you down to the station?" Seeing her tense, Graham added, "Those three idiots are safely locked up where they belong, and we anticipate filing charges. They won't trouble you again."

Emma exhaled. "Okay. Cool. Let's go then."

After bidding farewell to David and Kathryn Nolan, and thanking them for their hospitality, she followed Graham down the steps of the Victorian to the cruiser, the passenger door of which he held open for her. "You do this policing bit all by yourself?" she asked, ducking in.

"Yes." He shrugged awkwardly. "It's in my budget to hire a deputy, actually, but for some reason I've never got around to it. You said you work in law enforcement?"

"Yeah. The ATF office in Boston. I'm not staying," Emma hastened to add. "Just try to get this ridiculous mess sorted out and get in contact with my boss."

She thought Graham might have been disappointed, but he did his best to hide it. They made polite, impersonal small talk as he drove through downtown, which was clearly buzzing about the events of last night – they probably hadn't had so much excitement in years. Then he turned into the sheriff's station, parked, and once more darted around to open her door for her. Emma had never had a guy be chivalrous to her before, even in dumb things that she could completely do for herself, but Graham's earnestness and sincerity was so apparent that she felt bad blowing him off. It was kind of nice, actually. No one had ever put her first.

She got out and followed him up the steps, through the doors and into the station. A glass-walled office faced two jail cells – apparently there wasn't what you'd call an epidemic of crime around here – and her instinct noticed something wrong before she consciously processed it. Greg and Tamara were shut in one, but the other –

The cell door was open. So was the window.

Killian Jones was gone.


	22. Chapter 22

"Oh, hell." Graham put a proprietary hand on Emma's arm, holding her firmly as he surveyed the unexpected ruin of his domain. "I don't know what – I locked the bugger up properly, I swear!" Something then occurring to him, he glanced around as if in expectation that the escaped miscreant might be lurking just out of sight with a crowbar, and his free hand fell to the holster of his gun. After a few minutes spent canvassing the station, he returned to Emma's side, scowling even more. "Do you mind if we delay the questioning session a few hours? I'd better bloody catch him before he does something worse."

"Be my guest. Actually, I'm on the case as well. I'll come with you."

Before Graham had time to protest – in Emma's experience, chivalrous behavior toward women tended to come arm in arm with the notion that they were frail china dolls who had to be shielded from the brutal masculine realities of sex, swearing, violence, and death – she grabbed the deputy's badge off the chaos of the desk and clipped it to her belt. "There. If anyone bothers to ask, I'm doing this legally. My ATF badge got left behind with the rest of my stuff in Boston – " she aimed a vicious glare at Greg and Tamara, still shacked up in their cozy love nest of a jail cell – "otherwise I'd use that. Let's go."

Graham shut his mouth with a click, then mustered up a brisk nod. "Quite so, Deputy Swan. Right behind you."

Most unwillingly, part of Emma felt a little thrill at those words, and she passed the immediately following moments, consisting of them pelting back down the steps and into the police cruiser, brusquely trying to squash it. Graham laid a trail of rubber as they peeled out, and he glanced at Emma questioningly. "D'you think I should switch on the siren, or would it only alert him that we're coming?"

"Leave it off, definitely." Emma was surprised. Even in sleepy small towns, older male veterans weren't in the business of asking operational advice from young female rookies, and even if Killian Jones had a good fifteen or twenty-minute head start, he was on foot. He couldn't outrun them forever. The discrepancy made her ask, "How long have you been a cop, Graham?"

He took a breath as if to answer, then frowned. "Can't remember. I guess I always have been."

"Well, obviously you weren't always." Despite herself, yet again, Emma slid closer. "You grow up here, I take it?"

Graham's brow wrinkled. "I suppose so."

That was an even stranger answer, and Emma was about to comment on it, but it struck her that she was now the one going against procedure, distracting her colleague with personal chitchat in the middle of an active crime scene, and she shut up and busied herself scanning with binoculars out the window, as Graham slowed the cruiser to a better hunting pace. They combed downtown and the residential neighborhoods, eyeing the car phone as if in fear that it was suddenly going to ring with Jones and a hostage on the other end, but it didn't. They cased the hospital, knowing that his victim and intended victim were there, but likewise turned up nothing. By the time they were in the woods that surrounded the town, peering through the dense green underbrush as if through the jungles of Borneo, Emma was despairing of how impossible it was to conduct a proper manhunt with only two cops in one car. "We're never going to find him like this, Graham. We need to try and phone my people down in Boston for backup."

She determinedly put out of her head what had happened both when she'd tried to call last night, and when the previous backup had confronted Killian Jones in the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel, the way he'd cut through them with a fucking _poker._ "This guy is way out of your usual league. He's formidable, he's incredibly talented, he's ruthless, and he's insane. I promise you, we're going to need help."

Graham, looking frustrated, nonetheless put the cruiser in park and ran a hand through his curls, disheveling them further in a way that was too damn cute. Not that Emma was looking or anything. "Okay. If you're sure about this. I mean, what is this going to be? Police helicopters or something? Here in Storybrooke?"

Once again, he sounded unsure, almost frightened. Emma frowned at him, then picked up the car phone, dialing for an outside line before entering the direct number for James' office. Surely he'd be there; he was one of those guys who thought that life was intended for work, instead of vice versa. But just as before, it rang and rang with nobody answering.

Emma finally hung up in exasperation, a line carved between her brows. "All right, that's just fucking wrong. I think there's something in this town somewhere that's playing monkey business with the long-distance signal. Can you drive out beyond the limits, so we can see if it works better out there?"

Graham gaped at her. "Leave Storybrooke?"

"Yeah." Emma was getting impatient. "I can assure you, a little thing like a road sign is not going to stop Jones – he could be well down that highway himself by now. And if you want to catch him or call in the big dogs from Boston or anything, we'd better go. Come on." She reached for the automatic transmission, to put it back in drive.

Graham's hand shot out and covered hers. Not in a comforting or agreeing way, but in a way that connoted no small threat. "We don't leave Storybrooke."

 _"What?"_ Emma exploded. "That's bullshit! Get moving! What are you going to do, head back to the station and sit with your thumb up your ass in hopes that Jones will drop by for afternoon tea? Jesus, maybe you need some serious cop lessons after all, because where I come from, that's sure as hell not how we catch bad guys. Or did you think that we could just – "

Staring into his glacial, emotionless blue-grey gaze, however, her angry tirade cut off abruptly. Just as before, her sixth sense was warning her that something was very wrong. Until now, Graham had treated her fairly, gently, and even more than a little flirtatiously, in his sweet awkward puppy-dog kind of way. But looking at him now, it was as if an entirely different person was looking back. As if he was being. . . possessed, or controlled, or something else well beyond the freaky pale. Like Frankenstein's monster coming to life, lightning crackling down the tubes, he swung toward her, eyes gone white and unfocused, and lunged.

 _"Jesus!"_ Emma reacted just in time, scrambling backwards across the seat and kicking him in the face, as she twisted around and struggled to unlock the cruiser door, even as the engine whined madly and started to rev. She wrestled the door open, felt Graham's fingers claw at her ankle, and threw herself out headlong, the gravel of the shoulder scraping her face into raw meat as she hit it at a far faster speed than anyone's face was designed to hit a road. She rolled desperately, trying to get clear, as the wheels squealed inches from her head and the cruiser rocked on its suspension as Graham leapt out after her. She pushed herself to all fours, then upright, put her head down, and ran for her life.

Two cracks and bangs punctured the grey, muggy air; he'd actually taken out his gun and was firing at her. Shooting a glance over her shoulder, she saw that he was staring at his own hand in shock as if struggling to regain control over it, as if it had acted completely outside his volition, and jerked in a crazy stutter step around the police car as if some capricious god or demon was tugging on his strings. It was, in fact, the most blood-chillingly horrifying thing she had ever seen in her life, and it made her run, if possible, still faster.

 _"Emma!"_ She thought it was him who shouted after her, not whatever Dr. Hyde had just taken him over, but she didn't dare to stop or turn or even slow. She could see the road sign just ahead – _Now leaving Storybrooke –_ and put on a final burst of adrenaline-fueled speed, feet beating a tattoo into the pavement. She could see the car swerving crazily toward her, wondered for a brief and mad moment if Graham was even behind the wheel, and then ran headlong into something invisible, something that felt like sticky treacle, and clawed through it in slow motion, tumbling out on the other side bleeding, breathless, and terrified. _Have to get up, have to –_

But looking back, she saw. . . nothing. Even though instants earlier, the police car had been about to run her down, the road was quiet and deserted. There wasn't even any road sign. No visible token, in fact, that anything human lived out here at all. Just the overgrown thickets of weeds in the culvert, the hunched mossy trees dark enough to cast shade, the distant, dull shirring of birds and animals. The sun came and went behind a cloud.

_There is no such place as Storybrooke, Maine._

Despite the fact that it was close to eighty degrees with drenching humidity, Emma started to shiver uncontrollably as she stood in the middle of the empty road. Despite pinching herself at least three times, she was no longer sure if she was asleep or awake, and didn't think she wanted to find out. The obvious hypothesis, of course, was to walk back toward whatever invisible boundary she'd just crossed to see if the town reappeared, but seriously, how could it just _vanish?_ And even if she got back in, her last sight of it had been of a crazed sheriff with some kind of amnesia and/or mind control putting up a good-faith effort to kill her. Loathe as she was to think about anything from her ordeal, she remembered Tamara's words about how there was something else here (where? _Where?)_ About how they couldn't go in off their guard.

Emma did not intend to go in ever again. _Is anyone who stumbles into that place ever allowed to leave?_ Not a question she wanted to ponder, and it even briefly made her feel sorry for Greg and Tamara. Then her brief moment of empathy blew out like a candle in the wind. They'd made their choice, and nearly gotten her killed too for it.

She couldn't help one last nervous glance over her shoulder. Nothing. No sound but the wind.

Turning away, she started to trudge.

* * *

It took Emma the rest of the day to get back to Boston. She walked for a good five miles until the meandering country road funneled into a four-lane highway with signs for places she actually recognized, and then stood hopefully with her thumb out until someone – a family of summer vacationers in a boatlike RV – finally stopped. They were horrified by the mess of her face, and readily believed her story that she'd just escaped from a bunch of crazy meth-head backwooders who'd tried to haul her off to their remote cabin and do God knew what with her. They urgently enquired if they needed to call the police, and Emma reassured them that she'd take care of it. All she needed now was a ride south, as far away from said lunatics as possible.

The family was heading for Portland, but promised that they weren't going to leave her high and dry, and Emma was content to leave the plan at that as she sat in the back of the RV, the family's teenage daughter gingerly dabbing at her face with an antiseptic towelette and jerking her hand away every time Emma hissed. Finally, she ordered her to just clean it, and bit her lip at the sting, until most of the blood had been sponged off. Then they gave her a cold pack from the ice chest to wrap in a towel and hold against her face, and a popsicle to eat. In fact she was starved half to death, having had nothing since the pizza last night before Tamara and Co. kidnapped her, and so they stopped at a Wendy's and bought her a meal.

Emma huddled on the bed in the back of the RV, munching fries, as they swayed along the highway. She couldn't stop herself from stealing continual glances out the window at the other cars, as if expecting to see Killian Jones' face in one of them. She already knew in her gut that he had in fact gotten away, and that she was going to have to figure out some way to track him down. She was already going to be faced with one hell of a mess to explain to her higher-ups, and now that she was increasingly sure that they had somehow been caught in the same trap, that he had been set up by Tamara and Lacey for purposes of their own and might not be after her at all, there was nothing to stop her from working the case again. Of course, James was likely to disagree, but that was a bridge to cross when she got to it. Assuming she got to it.

They reached Portland in midafternoon, and Emma remembered that there was a coach line that ran frequently to Boston. The only problem was, of course, was that she had no money; her wallet had likewise been left behind in her apartment, and she didn't want to ask the family for the thirty bucks it would cost to purchase a ticket. But they insisted, and Emma accepted the money with grudging gratitude. She'd just missed the 2:30 bus, so she waited for an hour, still tense and on edge, then bought a seat on the 3:30 departure and all but collapsed into it.

It was only a two-hour trip assuming no traffic, but it was a Friday in late summer, the construction projects and tourists and weekenders and returning students were out in force, and even an elderly jogger could have outstripped them as they crawled down 95. Emma dozed fitfully, but couldn't sleep; images from the last twenty-four hours seemed to be laser-etched behind her eyes whenever she closed them. Even by her low standards, it had been a fucking bitch of a day, and she could see people stealing glances at her face; she must look like a domestic abuse victim or something. _Possibly not that far off._ After being Tasered, tied up, thrown in the trunk of a car, witnessing two attempted murders, then running for help, assisting in the hunt for an escaped prisoner before having to fight free and make a break for it herself, walking for miles, fending off questions, and then sitting here broiling in the coach's insufficient air conditioning, Emma was just about ready to kill someone herself.

At last, at long long fucking last, the coach pulled into Boston's South Station at almost 7 PM. Emma stumbled off, jelly-legged, and wondered if she dared to go home. If Tamara and Greg had managed to weasel their way out of their predicament as well, which was difficult but certainly not impossible, they lived downstairs. It probably hadn't been that hard at all, now that she thought of it, for them to set up some kind of rudimentary surveillance operation and keep tabs on everything she brought home from work. They must not have been fooled for a second by her shabby lie about being "Ruth." _God. How long have they been after me?_

Without a wallet, and hence no T card to catch the train or cash to take a cab, Emma was faced with the unpalatable option of walking – wherever it was she was planning to go. Finally, she decided that she had to risk at least seeing if they were there. If not, she'd dart in, retrieve her stuff (not her phone, seeing as it was now swirling along somewhere in the depths of the city sewer system) and book it out again. If they were. . . well, that was another for the "improvise and then run like hell" section of the plan.

Emma was reeling in exhaustion, so footsore that she was bleeding through her shoes, by the time she was climbing the brownstone's front steps, cracking the door, and peering hesitantly in. She couldn't see any light from Tamara and Greg's apartment, and thus inserted the rest of her body through the space, using only the minimal amount, and bolted up the stairs beyond, to her own. They'd left her door locked, but even she was not completely out of her bag of tricks, and picked at it with her bitten fingernails and oddments in her pockets until she got it open. Then she went inside, collected her wallet, still-packed suitcase, and keys, jumped about a foot when the radiator banged, and scuttled out again.

She didn't feel safe until she was at least three blocks away. She knew that she couldn't keep going much longer, but she was still running on fumes, the kind of sick adrenaline that made people do the physically impossible: lifting cars off their kids, climbing tall trees, swimming for hours, surviving in bitter cold. She didn't realize where she was going until she got off the train in downtown Boston, and saw the Renaissance Hotel looming above the waterfront.

If they recognized her as the blonde who'd been in the middle of the crook-catching bust gone horribly wrong just a few days ago, she was screwed, but they didn't. The cheery receptionist checked her in, informed her that they had several lovely rooms available, and even had the decency not to stare at her hamburger face. Emma thanked her with a grunt, took her key card, and staggered into the elevator. She rode up, swiped into her room, shut and bolted the door, and then fell on the bed, too tired even to undress. Unconsciousness was already pulling at her, more alluring than any lover, and she let go and fell into its soft dark embrace.

* * *

It was three-thirty the next afternoon when Emma woke up, having neither stirred nor dreamed nor even moved for the past nineteen hours; her catatonia had been so complete that it felt as if she'd been under some fairy-tale sleeping curse or something. Her neck and back were horribly cramped, her face mashed with pillow marks, her hair tangled, her breath horrible, and her aspect otherwise that of a particularly ill-tempered and hideous ogre, but she was alive, and she even felt somewhat better. She padded into the bathroom, undressed, took a very long shower, and ferreted around in her suitcase for some clean clothes. If she hurried, she could definitely catch James at the office; he was always there on Saturdays until at least six PM. And needless to say, she had a whole fucking lot to tell him.

When she'd combed and braided her hair, brushed her teeth, put on makeup, and done a few yoga stretches, she felt almost human again, and grabbed a snack from the hotel bar as she headed out. She was afraid that the ATF offices would have vanished as well, or be surrounded by a horde of raving lunatics with torches and pitchforks, but everything was wonderfully, reassuringly normal. She used her badge to enter with no difficulty, and rode up.

James was on the phone when she knocked on his door, and didn't turn around immediately. He was frowning, taking copious notes on a yellow legal pad, and she definitely thought she heard the word "situation," which, in law enforcement, only ever meant the kind where Murphy's Law applied with a vengeance. She waited until he hung up, then strode in.

"What the – _what the!"_ James had very unwisely taken a sip of Mountain Dew just as she did, and thus baptized his monitor with a spray of neon green soda, dripping down onto his notes. He lunged to dry them off before they could ruin all his hard work, but kept on coughing, staring at her. "Emma? What the _hell_ are you doing here? I told you to leave town, it wasn't – "

"Yeah. That would have gone better if the people you sent weren't complete fucking psychopaths."

Even he was (understandably) taken aback by that, and it took quite a while for the story to emerge in coherent fashion. She told him most, but not everything, of what had befallen her since she'd hung up with him, and watched as his jaw sagged lower and lower. Either he was the world's best actor since Leonardo DiCaprio not to receive an Oscar, or he genuinely had had no idea that Tamara and Greg, whoever and however they were plugged into high-level federal law enforcement sources, were such shady characters. He kept shaking his head over and over. "We _worked_ with these people. We trusted them. And now you're saying their friend was the one who codenamed herself the Librarian to call in this tip about Shamrock – Jones, I mean – and start the whole charade? The hell were they _doing?"_

"I've asked myself the same question. About four or five hundred times. Believe me."

"Yeah, I bet you have." James leaned back in his chair, rubbing his unshaven blonde stubble and muttering. "Somebody's getting fired over this, trust me. We vet our contractors and our coworkers and everyone who handles the stuff on the ground, but either something major slipped through the cracks or they've got a mole on the inside. Shit. We're going to have to go through the entire damn department and recheck everyone's creds and clearance. And when we're trying to catch a crazy guy to boot, and in the wake of that whole fiasco at the Ren. _Shit."_

This was Emma's cue. "Yeah, I know. It's going to be a pain in the ass. But you need to get it done, otherwise they – or their friends, they talked about it like there was some kind of organization involved, not just them – could remain happily plugged in and anticipating all our moves. And so. . ." She swallowed. "Send me to hunt down Jones."

James blinked, then stared, then shook his head. "No. Absolutely not."

"Look. You heard that bug recording. With the. . ." Emma's face heated to the approximate temperature of lava at remembering just what James had overheard, and hastened on. "Never mind. I know what you think. Either that I'm in with him somehow, or that he's a personal threat, or that he killed my parents and poisoned me. I can tell you with almost one hundred percent certainty that none of them are true, and honestly? I can't tell you why, but I think I'm the only one who can catch him. You saw the security tapes and everything, what this guy's capable of. What use did my backup do me at the hotel?"

"Emma. Look. You're in your first year, you're doing what all new agents do. You're going too big. You want to make a splash. Announce your presence with authority, as it were." James made a wry face. "But if you think that after what just happened that I'm letting you go out on your own against a guy who was fully prepared, according to you, to commit at least two murders, then – "

"See. That's the thing." Emma had had a lot of time to think on that snail of a bus ride from Portland, and some of the conclusions had come from there; others had been present in her mind when she woke up this afternoon, without her consciously remembering drawing them. "I don't think they were random. In fact, the furthest thing from it. He's not a serial killer who just goes out and caps somebody in the ass for shits and giggles. I'm not saying that what he did was in any sense of the word defensible, but. . . like I said. I know him. We have a history, even if I will freely admit that I don't remember all of it. And I said earlier that he's crazy, but I'm starting to wonder about that too. I think he is coldly, terribly, horribly sane."

"So – "

"So I'm saying, he can be dealt with. He's not a frothing maniac. He has a code. Some kind of dark honor, almost. And. . ." Emma swallowed. "I know this sounds strange. But I honestly don't think, if it came down to it, that he would seriously, actually hurt me."

James raised a hand to his face, discovered whatever profanities he had been about to utter were entirely inadequate, and dropped it. He blew out a breath. "Emma."

"James."

"Okay. Fine. Convince me. Think like him. You said he escaped. Where'd he go?"

She hesitated, but the answer was clear. "I think he left the country. He couldn't try again at killing Gold, not with the entire town up his ass. Probably busted out of the jail, didn't waste any time at getting out of that crazy fucking shithole while Graham and I were going in circles looking for him, and hitchhiked to some small regional airport. Somewhere they wouldn't be as on their guard. Got a flight out."

"Theoretically, it doesn't matter where he tried to leave. An alert should have come up. We have the FBI on it, they're good at keeping people off planes who aren't supposed to be on them – "

"I'm sure. But let's be honest. If he was coming into the U.S. with the express purpose of killing someone, he probably had prepared some kind of cover identity to get back out."

"True," James admitted unhappily. "Well, that's another count for the charges – forging passports and identity documents and using them to flee abroad. Like you said. This guy is slick. But. . ." He hesitated. "Why haven't we heard of him? I ran the name. Supposedly Killian James Jones, an Irish lad from the little town of Drogheda on the northeastern coast. Doctorate in European history from Trinity in Dublin, a brief posting at Boston College, now a professor at Oxford. All checks out. But there are so many spaces where he's completely blank. Where you'd expect a normal person to have bank accounts, cell phone records, credit card purchases, social media profiles, anything. Just no electronic trace whatsoever. I know it sounds crazy – "

"No crazier than anything that's happened to me recently, I promise – "

"But either Killian Jones is an assumed name in and of itself, or he was born, then vanished, then reappeared in the real world as a grownup and didn't bother with the awkward intermediary stages. I can't find anything listing where he attended grammar school, if he was part of any clubs, did anything as a teenager. Even his parents can't be pinned down. Like I said. Nada."

Emma rubbed her temples. "Haven't we already established that if he _is_ a criminal, and not just a lone wolf out on a long-term vigilante justice crusade, he's really, really good?"

"Exactly. Which is why I still don't want to send you after him."

"Please." Emma leaned forward. "I wouldn't be asking if I didn't think I could do this. I promise. I'm stubborn and I have a lot of pride and I know I just had the battle royale of fuckups, but I actually think that the other people made it worse. If I go on my own. . ."

James looked at her wearily and didn't answer for a very long moment. Then he said, "If you do, it's going to be what I call a discretionary case. Basically, it means if you get your ass in hot water, we can't do anything to help you. In fact, if we're asked about it, we don't even know who you are. You're on unofficial assignment, you can't use department money – you're operating in all respects as if you were a private citizen, except for the fact that you have the authority to arrest him if you do find him. Got it?"

Emma nodded. "Yeah."

"So like I said, if he does go psycho, you don't have the four big guys with guns to bust in. Cavalry ain't coming. Is this really something you can manage?"

She paused, then nodded again.

"Jesus Christ." James raised his hand, stared at it, then commenced hitting himself dully in the forehead with the heel. "Just promise me one thing, champ."

"Yeah?"

"I like you. You've got pluck. Toughness. Courage, resilience. It's going to fuck you and fuck you hard. So please." He blew out another breath. "Just don't ask me to come to your funeral."

* * *

Despite that utterly pessimistic declaration, Emma felt as energized as if she'd slept another nineteen hours (or at least some). She collected her thumb drive, which contained a multitude of useful programs that a BU friend majoring in computer science had written for her, and plugged into the departmental database. Her fingers flew over the keys as she entered in a series of overrides and hacks, accessing the central terminal of citizen data that ATF had access to, as a branch of the federal law enforcement system. Some was stuff that could be acquired by the general public with a Freedom of Information request, but most was quite a bit more sensitive, and she chewed her thumbnail as she pondered where to start. Finally, following her hunch from earlier, she selected the regional airports within a fifty-mile radius of the part of Maine where they'd been, and started scrolling their passenger departure records for the past three days. She had no idea what she was looking for, only a vague sense that she'd know when she saw it.

As she'd expected, there was definitely no "Killian Jones;" he hadn't tried to travel under his own name (was it his name?) clearly knowing that this would lead him to a not-so-pleasant detention with multiple U.S. intelligence agencies. She knew better than to look at any of the Joneses in general – he was too careful to make a lazy mistake like that. Think. Think, think. Back a few years ago, when he'd bolted from BC, she'd met Wendy – Wendy Darling – who was looking for him. They knew each other. Had some kind of history. And Wendy, of course, was the inspiration for the eponymous heroine in the classic children's book, in –

Emma's eyes flew open. With suddenly trembling fingers, she altered her search parameters, typing in a new first name and struggling to think of what might serve for the surname. Her old roommate, Wendy's granddaughter. . . her last name had been. . . and it just so happened to be Killian's actual middle name. . .

She made one final alteration, and felt her heart seize up.

 _"Gotcha,"_ she whispered, staring at the screen.

Yes. She was almost sure. It had to be. About three hours after Killian Jones had escaped from the Storybrooke jail, a passenger by the name of Peter James had embarked at some rinkidink little county airport about twenty-five miles away, from whence he had flown to Burlington, Vermont, and then to Montreal, Quebec. From Montreal, doubtless using the Canadian stopover as a way to obscure further tracks, he had departed on a Lufthansa flight to London.

 _London._ It was that piece of the puzzle that confirmed it for her. As much as she searched, she couldn't find anything else, and if so, he had only just arrived. She couldn't know if he was retreating back to Oxford, his home base, or if he intended to batten down the hatches in London and hope that the American police wouldn't come looking for him there. But it was in Oxford that she'd first kissed him and remembered. . . whatever she'd remembered, that confused and chaotic jumble of memories that had driven her to flee in fury and terror. _You left me. You hurt me_. In Oxford that she'd met that shadow, or dreamed that shadow, or whatever the fuck had happened with him. _Never Never Land._

Emma sat staring at the terminal for a few moments longer, then powered it down, ejected her hacker drive, and cleared cookies and refreshed the cache. Once she had a clean OS, she went to Expedia and booked the last seat to Heathrow on a flight leaving Logan International tomorrow evening. Then she surfed to the University of Oxford website and began intel-gathering.

Her cover story would be simplicity itself; she'd pose as a prospective graduate student interested in visiting the university during summer recess, hoping to put together an application by the January deadline, as well as enjoying the beautiful, historic city. Then she'd have to tour the colleges, of course, and particularly the one she was most interested in attending: Wadham. If then she just so happened to discover that Killian Jones taught there, well then. She might ask the head tutor if she could arrange a meeting, or perhaps just happen to find herself in his office. And then, _then_ , they would see what they would see.

Last time she'd gone there unwitting, scared, shattered, and confused. This time she was returning like a heat-seeking missile, hard and determined. She'd do this. She swore it.

"I'm coming for you, Killian," Emma murmured, saving a few talking points to a Word document and transferring it to her drive. As she said it, she was surprised and unsettled to realize that while she meant it as a threat, it hadn't come out that way. Almost a reassurance, a promise, made to him and to herself. That no matter the distance, the space, the time, the difficulty, no matter what lay between, no matter what had happened or would happen, she would find him. As if she knew him. Already did.

She got up. Closed the laptop, shut down the lights, and locked the door. Emerged into the sultry Boston night. If nothing else, still breathing. If nothing else, a survivor. Moving forward.

_Wake up, Emma._

_Wake up._


	23. Chapter 23

Of all the scholars, soldiers, poets, and philosophers that Killian Jones had encountered in his long life, some in the flesh and some in books, he most admired whichever wise one of the lot had claimed that true happiness could always be found at the bottom of a drink. (Or if not happiness, oblivion, which sometimes passed as the same thing.) It had worked like a charm before, and thus he had never questioned this very admirable life ideology. But he had now found the bottom of several, and neither happiness nor oblivion were forthcoming. Just exhaustion, guilt, grief, and rage. Worse, those weren't even the strongest of the emotions currently taking apart his insides. That would be the feeling, faint at first but growing stronger with every sip, of complete and total futility.

It had been almost ludicrously easy to escape from the Storybrooke lockup. In fact, his professional reputation was downright miffed that they'd bothered to call it a jail. Captain Hook had trafficked in the dimmest and most disreputable corners of distant worlds, in formidable fortresses and prisons and dungeons where unfortunate souls were never seen again, and some podunk small-town hoosgow did not even merit a footnote. Once free, Killian had seriously considered booking it down to the hospital and shooting the crocodile in the head as he mooned over his tragically wounded love, but the place was crawling with watching eyes and interfering busybodies. He couldn't cut his way through all of them to get to Gold, and if they caught him again, they might stringently increase the nature of his punishment. Bloody Regina was here, after all, and even if she didn't know (he thought) the truth of that little caper with her mother, she would feed him to a dragon quick as spit if he looked likely to make people start asking awkward questions. The appearance of a mysterious stranger trying to murder Gold, of all people, might cause even the most passive of citizens to take a sudden interest in local politics.

Hence, Killian had elected to make a judicious exit. It was enough for now. He'd shot Belle before the crocodile's eyes, shattered the cup just as she was on the verge of remembering herself, and kicked Gold's heart to smithereens well and properly. Perhaps it was better to do it this way. Leave him alive to suffer, the only one who knew who he truly was in a town of cursed automatons, and then return and gun him down at some later date. So Killian told himself, as he hitchhiked to the nearest airport, presented his false passport, and boarded a flight to Vermont without a second glance. From Vermont to Montreal, from Montreal to London, and hence here, one of the dime-a-dozen luxury hotels in Mayfair.

He'd been drinking steadily from the moment he arrived, three days ago, and paid the bartender in thick stacks of pound notes to keep him from asking questions. Killian longed most acutely for oblivion, in fact. But the disadvantage of being a three-hundred-year-old pirate who'd adopted Ireland as his homeland was that it took industrial quantities of liquor to make him black out, and if he did, the constables might be called, his name run through a database. He'd done his best to erase all records of his trip, but one could never be entirely sure. It might get to MI6, and if so, it would make its way back to America. Only undesirable events could proceed from there.

Killian supposed that as long as he kept his nose clean, got into no more scrapes, and returned to Oxford quietly, he would be safe enough. Storybrooke was still cursed, after all; they'd have no hard evidence to charge him with. If worse came to absolute worst, he'd make a call to Wendy. She knew a vast array of important people in the British government: MPs, ministers, secretaries, intelligence services, and so on, and would probably be able to convince them to drop the case, or at least put in a good word with their American counterparts. But doing so would entail revealing that he'd gone after Gold, and that he'd been lying to her for years about it.

Yet therein lay the rub. Killian told himself so stubbornly that he was satisfied with the measure of revenge he'd been able to exact that he finally understood it was because he deeply, utterly was not. And not even for the expected reason. Where had it gotten him? Had it brought Milah back? Had it made him feel happy, fulfilled, whole? Had it stamped some overarching cosmic purpose on his life? Had the sky split, the stars fallen, the world stopped – or started – turning? Had he even been able to breathe without it hurting?

He hadn't. All it had done was end him up here, burning through his money like a bad gambler on a Vegas binge, as he drank from dawn to dusk and only returned to his room when they kicked him out at last call. Once or twice, when he was more or less sober, he'd gone out and wandered London for hours, absurdly tempted to walk up to a bobby and turn himself in. The explanation for why, however, was far more likely to end him up in a psychiatric ward rather than a jail cell, and Killian had no interest in either. He entertained the idea of damning the torpedoes and going back to kill Gold after all; perhaps it would be different if he'd been allowed to finish the job (he still had a lump on his head from where the lass had taken him down). But even that thought held no savor. It just made him want to crawl into bed and not emerge again for another three hundred years.

He was quite thoroughly stuck between a rock and a hard place, Killian reckoned. His long-planned revenge was both not enough and too much at the same time, and he could do nothing to make it better. That was where the sense of overwhelming futility came in. Gods, why, _why_ had he allowed himself to be lured back down this dark, seductive, destructive path again? He'd made a new life here, by his own hard work. A job, an education, a home. And now, because of this, it was worthless. Wasted. All bloody wasted.

He wished he knew where to find a sleeping curse. A hard task, in this land without magic, but not entirely impossible. You could find anything in London, if you looked enough. He knew for a fact, after all, that he wasn't the only one who'd come from another world, and some of those black-market merchants had their fingers in all kinds of pies. Whatever it was, he could pay.

Or, of course, there was the other option. A sleeping curse would certainly supply him with oblivion, but it would also trap him in yet another demented halfway-between for something close to forever. And while it was nothing less than he deserved, it wasn't something he desired. _I had it wrong. Instead of aiming to kill Gold, I should have begged him to kill me._ Beaten to death with the crocodile's cane, being hit by a car, anything his fertile and morbid imagination could possibly conjure. Die, and finally be reunited with Milah.

Yet when he tried to picture her face, how she would smile to see him again, he couldn't. He'd lost the drawing of her long ago, the last relic of her in his possession, and of course, he could not simply trot on down to a copy shop and have another made. He had the general impression of her, dark curls and blue eyes and earthy humor and sharp tongue and insolent smile, and scattered flashes of memory. But the rest was gone. And worse, he'd never noticed when.

Perhaps he didn't even deserve to see her again. Perhaps it was the sleeping curse for him after all.

And so, perhaps it was time to start looking.

* * *

Emma Swan stepped off the airline coach into Gloucester Green, the downtown Oxford bus station, on a shockingly bright and flawless August morning. Everything she'd read on the plane had complained about how England was having one of its wettest summers on record (which had to be quite a record, considering) but apparently, the big man upstairs had given the waterworks a rest for a few days. She'd packed galoshes, an umbrella, a rain coat, and extra bottles of detangling spray just in case; her hair would curl and snag madly in the damp. But instead she put on her sunglasses, hitched up her purse, and headed off to the cab rank.

Once Emma had left her things in the bed-and-breakfast, she walked back to the city centre and made straight for Wadham College, where she'd arranged a tour. It gave her something of a queer turn to see it again; it looked exactly like she remembered, and she could even pick out Felix's window (or rather, what had been Felix's window, as some other student doubtless occupied it now). If she went down the path there, to the gardens, she'd. . .

"Excuse me? Would you be Miss Swan?"

She jumped and turned. A beaming student representative was advancing down the quad walk, hand outstretched. "Welcome to Wadham! I'm Aurora Philips, and I'd love to answer any questions you have. I understand you're interested in taking up a graduate program?"

"That's right. I'm looking into the Master of Science in criminology and criminal justice," Emma lied fluently. "That's my undergrad degree. But I'm also interested in a history course. One of my friends is on faculty here, and he was very influential in my decision to consider Oxford."

"Can't go wrong, I say! Although there are some real witches in the MCR, you'll have to look out for them." Aurora rolled her eyes. "Not that that should scare you off. Who's your friend? You said he teaches here?"

"He does." Emma looked as guileless as possible. "Killian Jones?"

Aurora got an _oh him!_ look on her face at once, and blushed. "Oh yes. He's definitely stolen the hearts of quite a few of us around here."

For no good reason, a hot flash of jealousy burned through Emma, strangling her. Then she exhaled, and made herself smile at the other woman. "I expect so. He does have that effect on people. Do you know if he's on campus, by any chance?"

"I don't think so." Aurora shook her head. "Trinity Term ended the third week of June, and I haven't seen him since. Most of our tutors and students return in late September, Week 0 before the start of Michaelmas."

"Could you possibly direct me to his office, then? After the tour," Emma hastened to add, lest Aurora start to think that these were odd questions indeed to be asking about someone who should have been perfectly capable of supplying the information himself. "I have a few things to drop off for him."

"Of course. Well! Let's get started."

Apparently, it was that easy.

Emma toured the grounds, gardens, chapel, library, great hall, and middle common room of the college with Aurora, who chattered away happily the entire time, filling her in on facts from the ordinary (it had been founded by Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham in 1610) to the incomprehensibly British (it had placed fourth overall on the Norrington Table, which was apparently something to be very proud of). It also had something of a reputation as the Berkeley of Oxford colleges, meaning that its politics were decidedly to the left and its characters notably eccentric; hearing this, Emma could see why Killian had blended in so well. But to her surprise, she found that it charmed her too, making her sad that she was here on completely false pretenses. She felt almost as if she was home, as if it was a place she could be very happy, and even more oddly, part of that was because of, not despite, knowing that he was here as well.

 _What the hell? Are you out of your damn mind?_ She was here to arrest him, not to do – do whatever had just flitted through her head. God, one hot makeout session in a dim corner of a Boston bar, and suddenly her hormones were wreaking havoc. Wasn't it bad enough that she'd already completely dropped the ball by letting him get away? Not just once but twice? James thought she was going to get fucked hard (not like that, _Jesus)_ and she had to prove otherwise. Once they'd questioned Killian, _if_ they found no solid basis to charge him with, they'd let him go. But not until then. Justice had to be served. He'd actively tried to kill at least two people. _Kill._ That wasn't the same as stealing their lunch money or giving them an Indian burn.

"Miss Swan?"

Emma shook her head hard, snapping herself back to the present. "Yeah?"

Aurora looked puzzled, but once more had the courtesy not to enquire. "Sorry, but here we are." She gestured to the door behind her, _K. Jones_ tidily embossed on the brass nameplate. "If I let you in, you can go ahead and drop off those things you have for him?"

Oh, crap. She couldn't do what she needed with Aurora hovering solicitously outside. Emma made a production of fishing through her messenger bag, rustling papers, then frowned. "Damn, I must have left it at the B&B. Sorry. Another day. Thanks, you've been very informative."

Aurora assured her that it had been no trouble at all, thanked her for considering Wadham and hoped to see her soon, and waved her down the walk. Emma headed the few blocks to Blackwell's, killed some time at the café, and then, several hours later in the afternoon when she hoped to have a freer hand to operate, returned to the college and slipped furtively up the stairs.

A quick look to either side confirmed that the coast was clear. She extracted a low-tech implement from her bag and went to work. A few moments later, the lock clicked open.

Emma hurried inside and shut it firmly behind her. She was having the oddest sensation that she'd done this before, that at some point she'd been in his office (not this one, perhaps at BC?) in search of clues. What she'd found, if she'd found anything, she couldn't say. But no matter. She didn't have unlimited time. She pulled his swivel chair up to his sleek black desktop computer, fired up her thumb drive, and went to work.

Most of his hard drive was exactly what you'd expect from a professor: emails from colleagues and students, copies of syllabuses and graded essays and lecture notes, journal articles pertaining to research interests, invitations to faculty functions, paper bibliographies, and reading lists. But as Emma parsed through the data, she found two interesting things – or rather, one interesting thing and one interesting _non-_ thing. There was an encrypted file hidden deep in a subfolder entitled only, "Research." The rest of the folder showed in its properties that almost half a gigabyte of space was being used, but there were no other visible files.

Emma's eyes narrowed. _Very interesting. Very, very interesting._ It might have been wiped, but she had the serious stuff, could retrieve data from a machine even if it had been deleted. She entered in a few commands, waited as the transfer bar flashed up, and when she opened the copied folder on her thumb drive, there were now several dozen more entries.

She decided to start with "Research." She unzipped and uncompressed it, which didn't take long, and overrode it when it asked for a password to open the file. So even on his private computer, Killian Jones had been scrupulously careful. She was getting warmer.

It opened. She was expecting it to be a meaningless mishmash of binary symbols, but it wasn't. It was perfectly comprehensible. Close to three hundred pages of comprehensible, in fact. And as she scrolled through it, she felt her breath catch in her throat.

This, beyond any doubt, was what Greg had been reading from in the car. The dossier of information about Storybrooke, a curse, and the catalogued instances in the world of what the file bluntly called "magic." So Tamara and Greg had either obtained a copy from Killian, or stolen it from him. He must have spent years putting all this together, disguising it as research for legitimate academic pursuits, digging who knows where for who knew what, assembling a road map for whatever he had just tried to do the other night. It was either the world's most offbeat and demented fantasy novel, or. . . there was actually some kind of horrible truth in it.

Heart pounding, Emma scrolled to the end. The last words in the file stood alone on the page, bolded and underlined, hitting her hard in the chest.

**I think she's the one to break it.**

Break what? The curse? Did he and August move in the same circles, get obsessed with the same conspiracy theories? Now that she thought of it, this could just be a retread of the old chestnut about how the Knights Templar/Freemasons/Illuminati/shadowy mystical organization of your choice actually controlled the world. Shouldn't necessarily be taken seriously.

Nonetheless, to say the least, Emma was rattled. She closed out of the file, telling herself that she'd come back to it later, and began to comb through the others. These were just as interesting, if not more so. And indeed, once she'd opened and decrypted them, she realized that she had hit the jackpot. These were a full set of records for a false identity, and a surge of vindication flashed through her. _Peter C. James._ Passport. Mobile phone. Airline tickets. Government ID.

Credit card number.

It only took Emma a few keystrokes to run its recent transactions. At the top of the page, dated three days ago, was a charge from some exorbitantly expensive hotel. She Googled the name, found that it was a five-star place in London Mayfair, and felt her heart beat still faster. This was it. She had him. If she booked it out of here and caught the Oxford Tube, she could take him down tonight.

Fingers shaking, she closed the session, ejected the drive, and spent a few minutes making sure everything looked exactly as it had when she entered – she was _not_ about to fuck it up now. Then she headed out, decided against the bus due to the afternoon traffic, and boarded the next train to Paddington Station.

_Tonight, Jones._

_Tonight._

* * *

Today, Killian's fourth at the hotel, had begun like any other. He slept until noon, staggered out of bed like a corpse from its grave, and went to canvass the city. He'd heard through the grapevine that the Dragon had a local supplier hereabouts, and while it was such a ridiculous name that ordinarily he would have severe doubts about its legitimacy, he'd come across it quite often in the course of his research. Based in Phuket or Bangkok or some other Far East city, and a connoisseur of the sorts of items in which he had a present interest. If you could afford to pay, of course, and Killian could. He'd pay just about anything at this point. But seven hours of searching on the hot, crowded London streets had provided less than the ghost of results, and his head was aching bloody worse than usual.

The only solution, of course, was the liquid one. As he slid into his customary seat at the bar, he noticed the bartender giving him the fish-eye, but a casual flash of a twenty-pound note soon had his libation supplied. He lifted it to his lips and took a long slow slug, letting it burn all the way down. Maybe he'd simply stay here until he'd spent the last of his money – it would take a while, he wasn't hard up, but it could be done. Then acquire the sleeping curse and a convenient spot where he wouldn't be found, if ever, for years. Somewhere in Scotland, perhaps. Or Ireland. Aye, Ireland. Go home to die. Become part of the tapestry of wild green legend, myth, lost lovers sighing in the dells, a land of faeries and fays and thin borders between worlds. It would do.

Killian finished his first drink and took his second. This one he put away much more slowly; he had to pace himself, and he sank deep into a reverie, hearing none of the conversations around him, the flow of well-heeled, glittering patrons through the bar, restaurant, and lobby, out to fancy cars taking them to fancy places. What did he need to worry about? He'd brushed away his tracks. No one was going to find him here.

No one.

And then, like the girl in the red coat, his eye drawn like a magnet from among the countless, faceless others, he saw her.

* * *

Somehow, he couldn't even be surprised.

He was very nearly relieved.

As she crossed the floor toward him, doubtless in the belief that she was being supremely clandestine, he smiled and spun his stool toward her. "Lass," he said, as if they'd been planning this all along. "Very good. Let me finish my drink, and you can get on with arresting me."

She thought she was bloody tough, had an inscrutable mask, but she really should never take up organized gambling; she had a terrible poker face. "What are you talking about?"

Killian shrugged. "That's why you're here, isn't it? I don't suppose you found yourself in the company of four large men with guns, _and_ a bugged earring, by accident. Remember our last intimate encounter in a hotel bar, darling?"

The color of her face suggested that she did. So did he, all too well. She tried to clear her throat, with a sound like a small animal being strangled, then took a seat. "I want an explanation."

"Of how to arrest me?" Killian took another sip. "It's very simple. One cuff goes around one wrist, the other around the other. I don't mind being tied up if you're the one to do it, love."

"No. Not that." She was tense as a high wire, the Swan girl. Could barely look at him. "Of what happened in Storybrooke. What you did to. . . Belle."

"I don't see that I owe you one." Another drink. He felt almost weightless. Perhaps that bloke with his philosophy of drunken happiness hadn't been off the mark at all.

"Killian." The sound of his name jerked his head toward hers, locking their eyes. "I think you do."

"Why?"

"You said you wronged me."

"I did."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Don't you want to make it up?" She slid closer. Gods, she smelled bloody intoxicating (not as if he needed any help in that direction). "And it may interest you to know that I'm alone this time. No men with guns to call in."

"It was unwise of you to tell me that." He let her see his teeth when he smiled.

"Really?" A slow arch of her eyebrow. Moving closer still. Bloody hell, hadn't the bint ever heard of personal space? Aye, aye. Pot, meet kettle. Filthy hypocrite he was. "Are you planning to do something you'll regret?"

Their gaze far too long and far too charged, his intentions much too explicit, his self-control too ragged, his heart too broken. He couldn't have given a steaming damn about what was right, necessary, or proper. If she kept looking at him like that, with that fall of pale blonde hair, those haunted eyes, that half-healed bloody scrape on her face (who had hurt her? He'd kill them) that fragile skin, that visible heartbeat, he was going to pick her up and have her right bloody there on the bar. Couldn't be responsible for what he'd do. "What if I am?"

Unbelievably, she smiled. A smile just like his, raw and bloody. Gods, what a woman. _Gods._ Not yet twenty-three, and yet sometimes she seemed even older than him. She picked up his drink and helped herself. "What makes you think I'd let you?"

His eyes never moved from hers, watching her as if she was the last woman on earth, on the last night of life. Perhaps she was. "Likely you wouldn't," he granted her. "Never met a tougher or a stronger or a more stubborn lass in my life. Walls a mile high, of course, so we have to bother with this tiresome palaver about which of us has been hurt more, which of us has done the other more wrong. Words. Words. Words. Bloody words. You think so, don't you?"

She stared at him. He must be drunker than he thought. "What are you – "

He leaned over the bar and kissed her.

She was shocked, of course. Shut down there on her island, where nobody touched her and she touched no one, any invasion was hostile, and her hand came up with ideas of pushing him away. It never got there. Instead, his hand tangled in her hair and the other slid down to the small of her back, pulling her against him at full length. Her opened mouth tasted of the tang of his drink, her gasp stolen away, their breath and tongues mingling, wet and soft and slow and deep, as he kissed her as he hadn't kissed a woman in several lifetimes. He didn't care who was looking. He no longer cared about anything at all.

After a transcendent minor eternity, she jerked back from him, but not that far back. Their noses still touched, his mouth browsing her jaw, as he never let go of her, as he escorted her away from the bar, into the lowlit hotel corridor beyond. "You know," he whispered, his dark stubble brushing the smooth skin of her cheek, "it's strange. I don't regret this at all."

She shuddered in his arms. "No," she said weakly. "No. I didn't come for this."

"Liar." He kissed her ear, exactly where he'd used his teeth to steal her earring.

"Bastard." She shuddered again.

"Lost girl." His voice was almost tender.

She had no answer for that. Only her eyes spoke back to him, laid bare and broken in the truth.

"No," she whispered, one final defense. "No, I don't have a room."

"Well." Killian felt her, her heartbeat, her body, her breath, her soul. "It so happens I do."

* * *

The door shut behind them, and they were in each other's arms.

Dim glow from the London summer night striped through the closed curtains, turning everything into soft twilight, as Killian unbuttoned Emma's blouse and shed it to the floor, then unhooked her bra as well. Topless, she was even more beautiful, as his fingers traced the shadows on her skin and his mouth searched hers with tenderness and thoroughness and care, as his thumbs traced the smooth flesh of her breasts and circled her nipples until they went stiff. He bent to take one in his mouth, exploring that marvelous cleavage, kissing her until she trembled and moaned, kissing her until she melted, until he could _feel_ something in her snap. She fumbled back at him, almost ripping his shirt in her need to get it off him, and ran both hands up the lean, dark-furred muscles of his chest. She was mumbling something incoherent that might have been his name.

They stood locked in each other's embrace, kissing with all the fierceness and fragility of the beautiful broken idiots that they were, until he finally stepped back, took her hand, and led her to the bed. He sat first, and she came down onto his lap, straddling him, their eyes locked as they both understood that they were at the point of no return. He waited. As ever, he wouldn't go further if she wouldn't have him. Tonight, of all nights, with her, like this, it might well kill him, but that appeared to be a likely outcome anyway.

The air was thick, the spark almost tangible.

She met his eyes again. Hers were huge in the dimness, lambent, bright as the stars of Neverland. Her face was pale, but resolute. And she gave the tiniest of nods.

He surged forward, a dam inside him shattering, all his hunger and all his grief and all his need flooding to the surface, desperate to see her, touch her, taste her, worship her, with every nerve and every sinew and every shred of his old, dark, battered soul. His hands were shaking almost too hard to control them as he got the rest of her clothes off, laying her out beneath him, a perfect alabaster figurine atop the quilts. He was still more terrified that she might tell him to stop and push him away, but she didn't. She pulled his head to hers for an even more frantic kiss. And then, slowly, his mouth traveled down the length of her body, from breasts to belly, finding at last the slick sweetness between her legs.

She jerked. He put a hand on her hip, steadying her, and set to his work. He was drunk on her more than anything, exploring her, teasing her folds, her sensitive nub, the almost translucent skin on the very inside of her thigh, the fine blonde thicket on her mound, every blessed damned inch of her. When he brought his hand down instead, she was as wet as a spring rainstorm. His finger slid up inside her, into her hot, pulsing depths, and he nearly fainted.

It wasn't enough. He needed her, he needed all of her, and he could no longer hold back. She helped him as he clawed away his remaining clothes, until they were both in their skins, naked to each other in the darkness in every way that mattered, and he stroked her a few more times until she moaned out loud, then hissed. _"Killian. Now."_

He kissed the words from her mouth and lowered himself on top of her, her legs wrapping around his waist, her back arching like a cat's, both of them so bloody hot for each other he thought the bed was about to catch afire. His tip pressed at her entrance, and she made a noise so animalistic he thought he'd hurt her. Then she grabbed his arse in both hands, repositioned him, and pulled him down, easing his hard length into her inch by inch.

Killian made an inhuman noise of his own, sliding deeper and deeper until there was nowhere left to go, until he was far inside her and she was pliable as clay in his arms, when there was never enough of her to kiss, as they rolled their hips to straighten out the fit and he was already starting to move, in ragged, jerking thrusts that would have shamed a schoolboy at his first time. He wanted to be a better lover for her, wanted to impress her with his cosmopolitan panache and amorous skill, but all he could bring to her was hunger, desperation, devotion, awe. Gods, she was so sweet and tight and slick. He drove into her again, finding that sweet spot at the back of her spine, relieved that he hadn't forgotten _everything._ Her nails clawed at him, her breath emerged from her in stuttering, punching bursts.

Emma moaned, then cursed, then began to gasp his name, over and over like a mantra, as he could do nothing but fuck both of them into hot white blindness. They rolled over and over, entangling and incinerating, as he kissed every inch of her his mouth could find and she returned the favor, as he thrust her hard into the mattress and she braced her heels, pushing back on him, rasping them together and harder and hotter still. They must sound like a pair of newlyweds jostling the bed until the wee hours. He didn't care. Time didn't exist. Nothing did. Only her.

The end came when he was barely ready for it, and he jerked, gasped, swore a blue streak himself, and lost it entirely. He vanished into her skin like it was his, riding out the most intense orgasm he'd ever had in his life, shaking and shuddering as if caught in a terrible storm at sea. Her arms were wrapped around his back, anchoring him, holding him there, as they went down together and drowned. _A mermaid._ Bloody hell. Gods. What a woman.

They lay there for the longest time, until he finally recollected himself sufficiently as to slide out of her and collapse on the bed as if his spine had been removed. She made a small noise and nuzzled closer, and they started to kiss again, their mouths wet and bruised, their throats imprinted with the marks of the other's teeth, their scent mingled earthily, his hand sweeping down the long line of her spine. It was some time longer before either of them attempted to speak. It was him who managed it. "It seems you've already taken me prisoner, lass."

Emma stared hazily back at him, her eyes low-lidded and heavy through her long lashes. "You're still a murderer," she whispered. "You have to answer for it."

"Suppose I do." Killian stretched out, hands behind his head, gazing up at the ceiling.

She shifted, pulling herself closer again, as if she couldn't stand the loss of one inch of contact between them. She curled up against him, her head on his shoulder, but he could feel the tension in the hand that rested low on his stomach. "I'll give you one chance. Convince me."

"Convince you? Why? Of what? That I have something left to live for, or that there was an excuse for what I did? If you're interested, there was."

He expected her to ask, but she didn't. She reached out and ran her thumb up his right forearm, circling the tattoo. The heart, the sword, the name. He hadn't even thought she'd noticed it. "This." It wasn't a question. "Milah."

Throat too tight to speak, he nodded.

"Who was she?"

"Someone who I loved, who loved me, and was murdered horribly for it."

It didn't take her much longer than before. Sharp as a blade, indeed. "Gold."

"Aye."

"And Belle. . ." He could hear her putting the pieces together. "That was why you shot her. Because you wanted Gold to feel what it was like to lose a woman he loved, right in front of his eyes. I was right. It _was_ about justice. Your idea of it."

"My idea of justice is the same as any man's, love." His voice was sharp, sharper than he meant, and he sat up suddenly, knocking her away. "Rotten as my heart may be."

She kept on studying him with those astonishing agate-green eyes, cool and shrewd. He knew that look; she was hunting for something. Putting her walls up again as well, no doubt. Then she said, "How do you know Tamara and Greg?"

"I don't."

A curve of her mouth plucked up. She had a very distracting dimple. "Liar."

He sighed. "All right. Fine. I encountered Tamara briefly, during my previous exertions to get to Storybrooke. Strictly professional relationship, and far from friendly. Her and her lunkheaded sidekick's notion to kidnap me was, I assure you, entirely their own."

She mulled on that, and seemed to decide , for the moment, to accept it. "How do you know August?"

"Who?"

"August Booth. The writer."

"I don't know him. Only read his book, once. _The Real Boy._ Why?"

Her eyes flickered again, shadowing their thoughts away. Even after what had just happened between them, she hoarded herself like a miser. "He's somehow in on this."

Killian shrugged. "No concern of mine."

"If you say so." She propped herself up on an elbow. "You knew me, didn't you. Before."

He raised one eyebrow, inviting her to elaborate.

"What do you know about me?" It was half a demand, half a plea.

"Only bits and pieces." He decided that she wasn't about to tackle him just now, and lay back down beside her. "You were. . . different, when we first met."

"Was I?"

"Aye." He kept looking at the ceiling. "You were called Emma Nolan, then."

Almost imperceptibly, he felt her stiffen. Could feel her resisting it, the knowledge, everything it implied, and could not blame her. Had a brief and ludicrous thought that it was nearly like Belle, struggling to remember herself, teetering on the very edge of shattering. Emma was so stubborn, so bloody stubborn, and yet he understood why. Whatever had happened to her, whatever had broken her, didn't dare allow her to hope. It was even worse to have false hope and then get her heart stomped on again. But at last, in the faintest breath of a voice, she said, "Was I?"

"Aye," he said again.

"So it's true." She shifted her position. "I don't know how or what or where or why or pretty much fucking anything. But this. . . life, this person that I. . . I'm not. Who I thought I was, I mean. It's a lie. It's a _lie,_ and I can't – "

He sat up. It was too much for her to take in at once. He didn't want to drop it on her like this, to break her. He held out his arms. "Lass, I – "

She didn't come to him. Swung her legs off the bed and bolted upright, a fury in the flesh. She blazed, an avenging angel, stiff as a board from head to toe. "Don't touch me."

"Emma." He made a move after her. "Gods, woman. Will you bloody just – "

"Will I bloody just what?" Her fists were clenched, hectic spots of color burning in her otherwise dead-white cheeks. "Just accept that I've been fucked over in every kind of way, that I. . . that I might actually have some kind of _destiny,_ some puppetmaster playing with my life and messing with my head and screwing me over for their own amusement? Is that supposed to make me _happy?_ All this time – if it's true – if this is true – then I – then I – "

She stumbled on the words, chasing them like escaped birds, and could get no further. He saw a thousand cracks running up her, moved to catch her just in time, and pulled her hard against his chest as she buried her head in his shoulder, as she tried to hit him, as she came undone, as her back broke, as he held her tighter, as she gave up fighting. As her walls crashed down, as her scared, abandoned child could carry the burden no longer, as she let go, as she sobbed.


	24. Chapter 24

She was exhausted, had never been so exhausted in her life, and yet Emma swore she would not sleep, would not even close an eye. Her throat was sore and sticky, her eyes bloodshot, and she felt overall as if she'd just been kicked in the chest. Staring at herself in the mirror of the marble-palace bathroom, which was probably larger than her entire apartment, she saw only a haggard ghost staring back, a ghost that had grieved too hard and burned too hot, the marks of Killian's mouth red on her throat and shoulders. Hair coming down in tangles, skin sheened with sweat, lips bruised and swollen. She couldn't have looked more as if she'd just gotten laid if she tried.

_What the hell had she done?_

If it was just sex. . . that, at least, Emma could have understood. One-night stands were, after all, her preferred method of operation: sleep with some hot douchebag, get him out of her system, kick him out if he wanted to cuddle afterward, and never see him again. Granted, this one was in fairly sketchy territory due to the fact that she was supposed to be seizing him, not screwing him, but she still had time to amend that mistake. It was past midnight here in London, but only a little past seven in Boston, and James would definitely be waiting for her status report.

But she had done something far worse. She'd let Killian see her vulnerability, given him too much of an idea of her weak point. If he was telling the truth. . . _You were called Emma Nolan, then._ Six words to completely mind-fuck her, turn her world upside down. Broken her, thrown her into the tempest, to her landing in his arms. She'd just clutched onto him, and fallen. Cried until there were no more tears left, and he was stroking her hair and murmuring soft Irish nothings. _Yeah. Just what he signed up for._ James had been completely right to be reluctant to send her. She quite literally was not herself around this guy. He undid her – body, mind, and soul. Her judgment couldn't be trusted, her professional capacity severely suspect. All this time, Jones had almost certainly been playing her, taking advantage of their obvious animal attraction, hoping either to sway her to his side or to stupefy her and run.

But why, then, tell her about her former self? Why spend all that time simply holding her?

 _He's clever,_ Emma reminded herself miserably. _He's a step ahead of everyone._ Even if it would have taken some kind of world-class seer to arrange all this, it was safer to revert to that explanation than the other one: that Killian James Jones, dark and dangerous as he might be, was at heart as broken, lost, and lonely as she was. That they might truly understand each other, that they could make quite a team, that they could defend each other's weak sides from a world that had been nothing but cruel to them. Even –

 _No. No romanticizing this shit._ Emma had no time for girls who hung around with bad boys on the futile hope that they could get them parting their hair on the side, paying a quarter every time they said damn, and attending church on Sundays. Killian was a criminal and a murderer, and right now, she was going to go out and get her phone and place a call. The Met could have this place surrounded in minutes. It wouldn't be hard to arrange extradition to America. Take him down. Shove him away. Prove it. Protect herself.

Emma turned on the water in the sink and splashed away her ruined makeup. Washed slowly and methodically, taking her time. She toweled her face off and combed her hair, gargled with the complimentary toothpaste, and prepared herself. Opened the door, laying a track of golden light across the dark hotel room, and stepped out.

He was still there.

God. Why wasn't he getting the hint? Instead of making the least preparation to flee, he was sitting on the bed where she'd left him, though he'd put on a minimally decent amount of clothing. His eyes were very blue in the glow, watching her, barely blinking. He indicated the quilts next to him. "Come here, lass," he said softly.

Emma didn't move. "Sorry."

"Pardon?"

"Sorry." Emma moved to her bag, bending to unzip it and extract her phone – she'd bought an international mobile at Heathrow, since Tamara had destroyed her old one. "I have to," she breathed. "What you said the first time was right. I'm here to arrest you. Sorry."

She straightened up, readying to punch in the number, when his hand caught hers. She had barely even seen him move. But instead of wrenching the mobile away, his fingers closed gently over it, and his other hand moved to tip her chin back. "Really, lass? Really? Do you expect me to believe that, when you're standing in front of me telling me what you're doing, all but bloody begging me to stop you? To give you a reason not to?"

"Let go of me." Emma had already started to tremble at his touch, like a spooked horse. _"Let go."_

He raised her hand to his lips, mouthing the knuckles, warm and wet. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I don't care what you're going to do. I have a job to do, and I've already fucked it up, so to speak, enough." Emma wrenched loose. She could see the tattoo on his forearm, and that was the last thing she needed. Who cared if his girlfriend was dead? Sane, well-adjusted men didn't go on a murder spree just because that was the case. She could feel herself scrabbling desperately for any shred of certainty, anything she knew at all, and only felt it falling.

"Emma." His voice was low in her ear as both his arms came around her, holding her tightly, pulling her to his chest again. "Darling, it's late. Come to bed."

"I am _not_ going to be seduced into forgetting about this. And I am _not_ your darling."

She thought he might have smiled, even more bitterly than her. "No, I suppose you're not. Come to bed, regardless. We both need to sleep – about a thousand years or so would do nicely. I won't be going anywhere, I promise. In the morning, if you wake and decide you still want to arrest me, you can. You're right. I'll bloody well deserve it."

Emma hesitated agonizingly. The phone was still in her hand, waiting to be dialed. If she was so sure about this, why hadn't she just done it already? Why not?

Why the fuck not?

Slowly, loathingly, she opened her fingers. Set the phone down. And came to bed.

Emma slept only shallowly and sporadically, watching Killian like a hawk. He was slumbering deeply, but clearly not peacefully; his brow was furrowed, his teeth clenched, and he uttered small pained noises as if clutched fast in the grip of bad dreams. She was possessed with an absurd urge to wake him, to tell him that they were just nightmares, to smooth the anxiety and care away. But she didn't. She just lay next to him, staring at the ceiling, sometimes slipping under into a hectic doze. When she woke from the last one, his arm fell over her waist, and he mumbled something and drew her up against him, bodies warm under the quilts.

She should have rolled sharply away, but yet again, she didn't. Her back snuggled into his chest, spooning comfortably, and her breath came short, an entire clan of butterflies rioting in her stomach. She just lay there with her eyes closed, every muscle tense, until the slow advent of cold grey light announced that it must be dawn. Then, and only then, did she slide Killian's arm off, pad to the window, and peer out through the curtains.

She could only see a few feet in the mist and murk. Raindrops as heavy and silver as mercury beaded the pane and lashed the pavement; the few pedestrians out were bobbing along like brightly colored islands beneath their umbrellas. Apparently, that wet English summer the newscasters had been talking about was back in full force.

Emma muttered a curse and shut the curtains again. Now was the time. He was still asleep. Call, get him taken care of, head back to Oxford and do a final intel collection, then jump the next flight out before Britain started asking too many questions about what exactly an undercover American agent had been up to in their jurisdiction. She didn't think she'd caused any international incidents, especially as MI6 had certainly been clued in by the FBI to be on the lookout for Killian if he should happen to appear back in his homeland, but still. She just –

"Lass?" His voice came from the bed, low and hoarse. "What time is it?"

Emma cursed again, this time out loud. "Fucking early. Go back to sleep."

He grinned. "If by that you mean you desire privacy to make your all-important phone call, you can always step into the bathroom."

"Yeah, and let you get away? Nice try."

He tipped a one-shouldered shrug. "I gave my word not to escape."

"Bullshit."

"Why? I _am_ a gentleman. My word is my bond. You see me still here, don't you?"

She did, damn it. At least if he made a break for it, she'd know that he was lying, and everything would be easier. She'd given him ample opportunity, but he was stubbornly hanging around. Maybe he really did have a death wish, or was just simply fifty shades of fucking done with the entire mess and nonsense. That made two of them, then.

When she didn't answer, Killian swung out of bed and crossed the room to her. Took her hands in his, rubbing warmth back into the cold white fingers, gentle and methodical. Said nothing at all, no pleas or wheedling or promises or attempts to cut a deal. Just the same silent, steady comfort as when she'd broken down on his shoulder last night. Their faces once more were too close, their bodies too woken, speaking too sweetly to each other, and for all that she'd vowed this was it, that this wasn't going to happen again –

It happened.

* * *

It was past noon by the time Emma and Killian turfed themselves out of bed again, tousled, sweaty, and starving. They'd made love again, had a fight, called each other all sorts of names, hit each other, kissed each other, then straight-up fucked a third time, harder and rougher and hotter than Emma had ever had it in her life, him throwing her on the bed and taking her until she saw stars, until her fingers clutched at the quilt and almost tore it, her legs wrapped around his waist as he filled her to the hilt, as he thrust and cursed and gasped her name, every nerve she had unstrung and jangling and broken, as she climaxed so hard she thought she'd turned inside out, until it was several moments until they could disentangle themselves and sort out which body belonged to which. She felt almost as if she had broken in half when he pulled out of her, blood tattooing a drumbeat in time with her madly racing pulse.

It was still raining, and since neither of them were in any state to comport themselves sufficiently to appear in public, Killian ordered them both a late lunch from room service. She noticed that he still used his alias, Peter James; no matter how much he mouthed the platitudes about peaceably giving himself up, he wasn't going to just drop his guard. She thought about calling him on it, but by the time she got back from the bathroom, the food was there, and both of them dove into it as if it was their last night on earth.

Conversation was minimal as they ate, curled up on the bed together, the sheets hot and twisted, smelling of salt and musk and sex. Emma couldn't remember if housekeeping had come by; if so, they had surely heard the noises coming from behind the door and decided not to even bother knocking. Her face flushed at the thought, and yet she couldn't quite bring herself to regret it.

When they finished, Killian placed the dishes outside the door to be retrieved, then shut it and turned back to her. There was a gleam in his blue gaze that made her spine stiffen; she scrambled upright, not wanting to be taken at a disadvantage at wherever the hell this was about to go. "Well, love," he remarked. "I don't suppose it can be gotten away from any longer."

"What?"

He raised an eyebrow, but gallantly allowed her to play stupid. "The stalling. It's very bloody enjoyable stalling, don't get me wrong, but still. Even I have a certain degree of self-respect. So either arrest me now, or don't."

"What will you do if I don't?"

He shrugged. "Go into permanent hibernation, I expect."

She thought he was joking, and snorted. "We wouldn't want that, now would we? Well. My demand from last night still stands. I want an explanation."

"Do you? You've already found that a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing. Am I to understand, moreover, that I may be able to trade this intelligence for my freedom?"

"Depends on what you tell me."

"Tough lass," he said again, admiringly. "Still not showing your hand, are you?"

"Oh, I don't know." Emma tossed her hair. "I think I've shown you quite a bit."

Killian stared at her, then laughed, but the look in his eyes was naked hunger. "True enough. I'm so bloody drunk on you that if you keep looking at me like that, with that strumpet's smile, I may have you up against the wall or on your back again before you know it."

"Looks like we're both trying to fuck our way out of this, then." Emma flashed him another of said smiles, just to up his ante further. "Well then, there you go. There's your offer. Tell me what you know, and I'll decide if it's worth letting you walk."

"That doesn't seem very fair."

" _Fair?"_ She stood up all at once, letting the sheets drop from her lovely, lissome, and notably unclad body, and padded over to him, taking great delight in hearing his blood pressure spike through the roof. "You really want to go here, buddy?"

Sweat was standing out on Killian's forehead. He tried, with a comic lack of success, not to look at her. "Very well," he gritted out. "But I'll give you the information on _my_ terms."

"And those are?" Emma breathed, sliding closer.

"Nothing you – ugh – would object to, you – argh – wretched minx. Taking you – ah – out to dinner tonight. Properly. First time I've – bloody _hell –_ been sober – in nearly – a week."

"Dinner?" Emma nipped his earlobe. "How are we going to pass the time until then?"

"Oh." Killian's grin turned feral. "I'm sure we can think of a few ways."

* * *

The rest of the afternoon passed in similar fashion. By five PM they were somewhere on the floor, having slid down there from the wall, tangled up in each other and nearly helpless with laughter. Emma couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed with a man, or laughed period, but their total inability to control themselves, spending the entire day in bed together as if they were on their honeymoon, taking delight in alternately tormenting and titillating each other, was cause for nothing but a case of the giggles. He was lying half on top of her, listening to her heart, and she was stroking his hair. Their physical compatibility was eerie. There was absolutely none of the awkwardness that usually attended when you were first getting intimate with someone new; their bodies just knew what to do with each other, and Killian finally announced that if they carried on much longer, neither of them would be able to walk out the door, much less to the restaurant he had in mind. Both of them, needless to say, had worked up a voracious appetite.

Hence, they peeled themselves off the floor, went to take a shower, ended up doing quite a bit more than taking a shower, and had to stagger themselves for the sake of time. It was past seven by the time they'd both washed, dressed, accessorized, and otherwise done their best to put up the impression that they actually hadn't been banging each other senseless all day. Then they took the elevator down to the lobby, and stepped out, hand in hand, into the London evening.

The rain had cleared away, and the sky was a glorious palette of candy colors, rose and lavender and gold and grey, the air fresh and cool. Black cabs and buses swept past, pedestrians hurried under the dripping trees and streetlamps, but Emma felt utterly at peace. She had to admit, it was fun to play make-believe, to imagine that she was out for a date night in one of the most glamorous cities in the world with her rich and gorgeous boyfriend, and had to sternly tell herself not to get it mixed up with reality. Beside her, however, Killian seemed just as relaxed.

After a lovely stroll of ten minutes or so, they arrived at some exclusive Parisian-style bistro with a name Emma definitely recognized; it was the kind of place where you usually had to make reservations six months in advance or know somebody on the A-list. But Killian drifted over to have a discreet word with the maître-d, and by the speed with which they were shown to a candlelit corner table, she guessed that the name "Wendy Darling" had somewhere entered the conversation. They were supplied with menus and a wine list, and a solicitously attentive waiter.

Emma glanced over it and promptly experienced an episode of sticker shock; she had never seen entrées priced in three figures, or bottles of wine in four, but Killian told her that she could have whatever she wanted. Their appetizers had just arrived when she said, "All right. Start."

"Start where?"

"Anywhere. You said you knew me when I was Emma Nolan."

"I – I did." A faint blush colored his high cheekbones. "We met when you were a sophomore at Boston College, an all-American girl from Storybrooke, Maine."

That name again. Every time she heard it, it was as if she'd been kicked in the gut. But she managed to keep her face neutral. "And let me guess. Because of what just happened, you were very interested in me."

"Aye," he admitted. Just then, the waiter popped up like a jack-in-the-box with a taster of the house red, and Killian sniffed it expertly and took a sip before pronouncing himself satisfied. Then he went on, "You got yourself into a spot of bother with your old boyfriend, one Neal Cassidy, whose guts I will gladly make into garters for you if I should lay eyes on him again. The details of the affair are a bit of a bore, but you wound up in jail, from whence I sprang you, and the two of us took a small excursion to Storybrooke. Whereupon we found Gold gone, having made some sort of infernal deal with your parents to go down to Boston and try to release you themselves. This complication led to us being detained by some interfering scruffy ponce named Graham, and one Regina Mills, who gave you a poisoned turnover. Upon eating it that night, you fell into a deep coma, were rushed to the hospital, and seem to have lost all memories of your old life, waking convinced that you were, indeed, one Emma Swan. In the meantime, I was shanghaied by one Wendy Darling into helping with a particularly delicate problem, here in London. I solved it, if it can be called that, but decided to stay. I've been teaching at Oxford ever since, awaiting the moment to return and complete my revenge."

Emma had been following this scrupulously, hoping that her lie detector hadn't chosen this particularly inconvenient moment to conk out again, and she frowned; she didn't think he was BSing her. The only problem, however, was that she indeed could not remember a single blessed detail. It _sounded_ plausible, but it only connected to scattered, jagged flashes of memory in her head that were oftentimes totally indecipherable from dreams. _Do I believe him?_

"All right," she said after a moment. "Both of us _have_ been in Storybrooke recently, or at least I think we have. There's something fucking weird about that place, and I'm not really sure I want to go back, but while I was there. . . I met somebody named David Nolan, all right? I've heard from a few people that that's what my dad's name is, but this guy was too young to be my dad, and he was married to a woman named Kathryn, which is not my mom's name. I asked them if they had a daughter, but they said no. So I still think it's just some kind of strange urban legend."

"Ah." Killian nodded at the waiter, who had returned to pour them both a glass. "About that."

"Is this where you say something about a curse?"

"So you _have_ heard of it."

"Heard of a lot of things." Emma sipped her wine. "What did Wendy want you to do for her?"

"Bit of a ticklish business. But. . . do you remember our meeting in the Wadham gardens?"

"Yes."

"The person or. . . thing that was following you." Killian waved his hand, as if in search of a suitable adjective. "The shadow. It was after me, and I. . . I didn't want to bring it after you, in which I seem, naturally, to have failed. I hoped that by keeping my distance, I could keep you safe. I have been hunting it all the last two years, trying to ensure it wouldn't go for you."

Emma opened her mouth to deny this, but she was remembering meeting that boy – meeting _Henry_ – all too clearly. _My son._ He wanted to take her to Neverland. Come on. If he _was_ anything more than a hyperrealistic hallucination, he wasn't exactly a Bond villain. And Killian thought he needed to _protect_ her from him?

"You're a lit professor," she said finally. "Or at least you've worked as one. I'm sure you've heard the expression 'tilting at windmills?' "

"Very well. You still don't believe me."

"I think I can take care of myself against a shadow, thanks."

"Not that one." He shrugged. "Nothing out of the ordinary, then? No unexplained noises at your house, nothing strange at the window?"

Emma was about to confidently tell him that of course not, but was caught short as she remembered both the recent instances where she thought she'd heard somebody in her apartment in Boston. Seeing the window open, hearing noises outside the door, thinking that nobody could get up to the second floor unless they could fly. "I'm pretty sure it was just random."

Killian's gaze sharpened at once. "So there _have_ been?"

"It's not a big deal."

"It is to me, Emma."

"Oh?" She laughed. "That's cute. I suppose now you try to excuse yourself and claim that you were still protecting me?"

"I make no such claim." Their steak and pommes frites arrived, and they picked up their knives. "I'm not a good man, and you have no reason to forgive me. If it wasn't for me, nothing about your life would be the way it is. I've been a bloody bastard, and that's merely that."

That took Emma aback. She was used to people, if they tried to justify themselves at all, immediately trying to paint themselves in the best light possible, flatter and wheedle and guilt her into forgiving them, trying to make it look as if they'd suffered just as much or more than she had. But still, from where she sat, there were plenty of men who'd happily do a spot of murder themselves to be in Killian's position. Maybe not the international fugitive from justice part, but the drop-dead gorgeous looks, the comfortable faculty position at a top-ten world university, an in with some fabulously wealthy literary heiress, clearly a good deal of disposable income of his own, wining and dining a quite attractive (if she did say so herself) young blonde at one of London's VIP restaurants after having passionate sex with her all day at an equally exclusive and luxurious hotel. . . "Is that really what you think about yourself?"

"The worst human alive," Killian said bitterly. "I don't deserve any of this."

"Why?"

"What you've already worked out about me, lass." His smile was weary. "My heart is rotten to the core."

Emma had to admit, he hadn't seemed that exultant when she found him. More like he'd been trying to drink his sorrows away for days, but could never succeed. Like he was, in fact, what she'd said to James: not some big-time criminal mastermind, but only a lone wolf out for justice, who had lost sight of himself completely along the way and knew it, hated himself still more for falling so far. This was some kind of quest, and it made her wonder. "How old are you?"

His eyes flickered. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes. Why?" He couldn't be older than about early thirties, and this bespoke a ridiculous amount both of dedication and odd temporal anomalies – how had he had time to establish a successful education and teaching career in the middle of a single-minded hunt for vengeance? "Unless you're going to tell me that this is like _Interview with a Vampire."_

Killian was silent.

"Wait." Emma wasn't sure she liked that. "It's not, is it?"

"No," her dinner companion answered at last, "insofar that I am, at least so far as I know, not a vampire. But if you want my actual age, lass, it is in fact somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty years old."

That, to say the least, rocked her. She did the only thing she could: come back with a quip. "You must have a great plastic surgeon."

He barked a laugh. There was no humor in it. "The best."

"So. . . Milah." Emma noticed Killian's slight flinch when she spoke the name, and had to fight the urge to apologize. "If you've been trying to avenge her all this time, find Storybrooke and do whatever to Gold. . . she's been dead for what, probably at least a _hundred years?"_

"Thrice that." Killian drained his wine glass and beckoned for a refill.

"She – she _what?_ Three _hundred_ years?" Emma couldn't believe the words, and even more, she was flattened by their implications. That one man could love that passionately and that well, could live that heartbroken and that long, could transcend physics and mortality and time and death itself. She felt cold, almost faint. "But then. . ." With her. . . today. . .

Killian apparently read her mind. A corner of his mouth quirked. "Five times in a day," he admitted, "is five times more than I've had in decades."

 _With me._ Emma didn't even want to consider what this was starting to reveal. If she was utterly, completely honest with herself, she'd been looking for a reason to let him free from the very start. She didn't want to arrest him then, and even less so now. But her dogged sense of justice wouldn't permit her to just write it off and pretend it had never been.

She didn't have anything else to say to that, nothing that seemed adequate, and the rest of dinner passed in silence. Killian ordered them dessert, some sinfully delicious chocolate mousse that (to judge from the price) probably had real gold flakes in it, and paid the bill, with his _Peter C James_ American Express. He left a hefty tip, and they stepped out into the night. This far north in summer, there was still a residue of blue light left, spangled across the heavens like fresh paint.

They continued almost back to the hotel in similar silence. Then, just as they were about to step under the awning, he turned to her and asked, "Well?"

Emma swallowed. "I'm thinking I might. . . lose the trail. If you know what I mean."

Apparently he did, but it was hard to say what he thought about it. They got into the elevator and rode up to his room; when he swiped his key card, Emma could see that housekeeping, no doubt diplomatically biting their cheeks, had put it back into perfect order. Somewhat surprisingly, however, they had also opened the window, and the curtains were fluttering in the breeze.

Killian stopped short and threw out his arm, stopping her. He was scowling. "What's that?"

"A window?" Emma suggested. "Rooms are usually equipped with one?"

He glared at her, then turned back, eyes darting from corner to corner. "Stay here."

With that, before Emma could enter the room, he shoved in ahead of her, every muscle tense. He poked and prodded, but didn't discover anything, and she saw his shoulders shudder in an exhale. "All right, maybe I was just being a bit bloody paranoid. But I could swear that – "

At that moment, the door slammed shut.

Emma, still standing in the hallway, jumped back with a startled cry to avoid getting her fingers crushed. Then she jumped forward again – she couldn't get in without a key card, of course, and it briefly flashed through her head that this was the world's most elaborate escape setup ever. But did he need it? She'd already as good as told him that she was going to let him go, and after everything –

Inside the room, she could hear Killian swearing. Shouting. The distinct sounds of a struggle, things breaking, a thud in the wall as if someone had tried to land a punch. Crashing and banging. And something else, a whoosh of wind, an almost demonic hissing. Like something – or _someone –_ was in there with him. Something like she'd never known. Unless she had.

_The shadow._

"Killian!" Emma pounded on the door with both fists, frantically judging the prospects of picking the lock. In a place like this? Slim. Very slim. _"Killian!"_

She thought she heard him bellow her name, but couldn't be sure. The ruckus intensified. She froze an instant longer, then wheeled about, broke into a sprint, and flung herself down the several flights of stairs to the front desk, screaming for hotel security. They likely thought (not altogether incorrectly) that she was Mr. Peter James' high-priced call girl, but came hastening up after her, used the master key to get in, and –

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing. Anywhere. The room was silent, dark, and deserted.

Killian Jones had vanished into thin air.

* * *

It was just over an hour later when Emma, standing on the front steps of the Kensington Gardens mansion and likewise pounding until her fists were sore, finally had the door answered by a clearly discommoded butler. "Can I help you, miss?"

"Yes. Actually, you can. I need to talk with Wendy Darling, and I need to talk with her now."

"Mrs. Henley?" The butler stared. Clearly, unauthorized interlopers did not come barging up these well-bred steps and demand to see the matriarch without extensive prior protocol. "I'm afraid that's not possible. She's not well, and – "

"My name is Emma Swan. Just tell her."

The butler, evincing the firm impression that he was about to faint on the spot from the scandalous lack of decorum, nonetheless subsided ungracefully into the house. Emma waited a tense five minutes until he finally returned, made a curt gesture for her to follow, and led her through the mansion. Up the stairs to the master bedroom, until she did feel guilty that she was dropping in out of the blue on an elderly and ill old woman, but –

"Ma'am?" the butler said. "Miss Swan."

"Ah." The voice came from nearby, in the dimness. "Come here, child."

The butler excused himself, not without a final rancorous look at Emma, and she, ignoring him, drew closer. Wendy Darling was sitting regally in the queen-sized bed among a pile of feather pillows, her white hair undone and her wrinkled face looking gaunt and pale, but her blue eyes as keen as ever. "I was wondering when you'd finally return, my dear."

Emma perched on the end of the bed. Finally, she burst out, "It's true. All of it. It's true. Storybrooke is a place that's cursed, I forgot who I am, there's a crazy shadow that kidnaps people and takes them to freakin' _Neverland,_ and you're not just the inspiration for Wendy. You _are_ Wendy. The real one."

The old lady didn't seem surprised in the slightest. "Yes, dear," she said softly. "It's all true."

"Jesus." Emma blew out a breath, racking a hand over her face. With that out of the way, it seemed at least nominally politic to explain why she had burst in on Wendy in her nightclothes, and she launched into a rambling, semi-coherent explanation of everything that had happened since she had unceremoniously cut all ties with the family. Leading up to tonight (she left out certain R-rated details) and the fact that Killian, after engaging in a struggle with some kind of supernatural foe, had disappeared off the face of the planet and damned if she knew where.

Wendy sat silently after this info-dump had been completed, staring at the wall for so long that Emma began to fear she'd made her have a stroke or something. Then she too let out a ragged sigh. "Revenge," she said, barely above a whisper. "So he _has_ been after it all this time. Has been baldly _lying to my face_ every bloody time I talked to him!"

"Yeah, I. . . I guess he has." Emma, once again, had that ridiculous urge to apologize on Killian's behalf, and she brutally forced it down. She was very likely never going to see him again. "This curse. Fine. According to a guy named August Booth, it's my bag. How do I break it?"

Wendy shook her head. "I don't know."

Emma was about to scream, but reminded herself that yelling at a bedridden old lady was not the way to proceed about getting valuable information, or life in general. She remembered something, dug in her pocket, and pulled out her flash drive. "Do you have a computer I can use?"

"Across the way, dear."

Emma got up, pushed into the dark home office, and plugged into the desktop. She booted up the drive without a problem, but when she tried to access _Research –_ that comprehensive dossier of information Killian had assembled on the curse and Storybrooke, three hundred pages of it – she only got a series of error messages. Apparently, the file had been designed to self-destruct if anyone – such as her, say – pirated an illicit copy of it. It was yet another example of Killian's careful planning, foresight, and ass-covering, and it made her want to throw the entire thing out the window, pound on the wall, and otherwise have a nuclear meltdown.

She sat there, staring at the blank screen, for she didn't even know how long. Then she got up, ejected the drive, and stepped back into Wendy's room, trying to control her voice. "It didn't work. Killian's research. He rigged it to be destroyed."

Wendy sighed. "I'm not surprised. I can tell you, from what I picked up, that there is only one person who can break that curse, and that there is a very definite time frame in which to do so. That it was, so far as I understand, twenty-eight years."

"Twenty-eight _years?"_ Emma's voice cracked. "What? Does that mean when I'm twenty-eight, or another twenty-eight years from _now?"_ She was twenty-two, was she supposed to wait until she was freaking _fifty,_ with this hanging over her like the sword of Damocles? No. _No!_

Wendy didn't answer. Plainly, she didn't know either. Then at last, in a voice so soft that Emma had to strain to hear it, the old lady said, "I imagine that's why it's a terrible curse."

* * *

Killian Jones did not know anything – his name, his face, his fate, his whereabouts – until he opened his eyes and stared up at an endless sheet of blue sky. Memories swanned vaguely in his battered head, but couldn't be pinned down. He had only a faint recollection of fighting for his bloody miserable life, harder than he ever had before, knowing that it was the shadow and it was here for one or both of them and damned, _damned_ if he was going to let it have Emma now –

Fighting that thing with nothing more than his bare hands. Aye. Bloody brilliant idea. He'd barely survived with sword and fire, the last time they'd come to grips in the Darling nursery.

It had taken him. Hauled him out, overwhelmed him, beaten him as if in the maw of a hurricane. He had some idea of careering high above the dark London streets, past Big Ben and the London Eye, dragged on and on, knew that if he got loose now he'd only fall to his death – shadowy hands gripping him, gagging him, as they shot up and up and up, above the clouds, into an endless dark sky luminous with stars, on and on and on and on, stars, second to the right –

Then down, down, down, toward a green island surrounded by clouds, through sun and mist and rain and sand, down and down until he –

No. Bloody hell. _No._

Yes.

Killian sat upright so fast that blood rushed to his head, nearly knocking him flat again. He was sprawled in the white sand, ice-blue waves rolling in on the endless coast, a thicket of palm trees crowning the headland and rapidly thickening into deeper jungle, a green so vivid it was almost black, rambling unchecked in lowlands and glades and valleys and then falling aside to reveal a snowcapped, cloud-crowned mountain, a formidable stony pyramid. There would be other jungles beyond it, he knew. Inlets and atolls and caves and hidden places, strange lights in the trees, strange sounds in the thickets. His numb brain was forced to realize that it was. He was here. And this was no dream. It was horribly, impossibly real.

"Neverland," Killian croaked aloud, the word falling like a stone in the hot white air. "I'm in – bloody – _Neverland."_

It made him want to lie back down and laugh until he lost his mind. After so long trying to escape this place, here he was again. Stolen by the wretched shadow, which had apparently had the last laugh after all. But he had to get back home – to London, to Oxford, to Boston. He had to find a way. He wanted his life, he realized. He wanted to try again. He wanted a second chance. He wanted to do something different with the time that he had been given.

He wanted Emma.

Just months ago, weeks ago, even days ago, the thought would have horrified him. But now he began to think that it was time he moved on from Milah at long last. Telling Emma just how long it had been had impressed a new awareness of it on him as well. She would have wanted him to live. Not merely to exist. Would want him to actually be the successful professional he'd masqueraded as. Would want him to be happy.

Killian pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. He was still wearing the dapper suit he'd gone to dinner in, which was risibly inappropriate for the tropical climate, and wondered absurdly if he could still dig up any of his old pirate clothes. But no sooner had he taken a step when he saw them coming fast, down the beach.

 _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._ He recognized them at once, had had a number of encounters with them, mostly of the cool-to-hostile sort. The Lost Ones.

They had a new leader.

Killian stood stock still, understanding at last and horribly, as the ragged band of boys surrounded him, hooting and jeering. Then – bloody hell, it was – Pan stepped through. A lad clad in green, ten or eleven to look at him, with freckles, a mop of brown hair, and a crooked grin, a grin suddenly so familiar to Killian that it froze his blood. _Bae?_ Had he never left here at all? Found some way to rule, to –

"Captain Hook," the boy announced. "Dark and sinister man, you are here to pay for your crimes."

Killian wanted to deny it. He couldn't. "You?"

The boy cocked his head. "My name is Henry, but _you,_ villain, will address me as Pan. I have you at last. You've been trying forever to stop me from finding my mother and taking her here to Neverland to be a mother to all the Lost Boys, where we'd be together forever and ever and no one would separate us ever again. You're a black-hearted rogue, evil and wicked and cruel, and now you're going to pay for it."

Killian hadn't thought it was possible to be more stupefied, but this did the trick. _"Mother?"_ Holy bleeding hellfire, no. No. No. No. No. Was this boy somehow Emma's _son –_ Emma's and _Bae's?_ But she hadn't said anything about a child, hadn't –

Dear gods.

Neal.

Neal Cassidy.

The one who had looked ever so faintly familiar, the one he hadn't liked, the one he wanted away from Emma, the one he had been happy to beat up when he thought it was him that Tamara was after. The one who had set Emma up for his crime and run.

_Run like a coward._

Killian was having trouble breathing. He fell to his knees, making incoherent noises.

Henry surveyed him proudly. Then he ceremoniously drew his shortsword, looking down with disdain – looking at Killian's left hand. "Captain Hook," he repeated. "You seem to have forgotten who you are."

"Please." Killian heard himself begging, hated himself for it even more desperately than usual. "Please, no. Please, don't. Don't."

Henry paid no attention. With a jerk of his head, he summoned the Twins to grab hold of Killian, shoving him flat on his stomach and extending his arms. Killian struggled uselessly, could hear Henry sizing up his stroke, choked on sand, didn't see how, didn't see anything –

And then the blazing pain lashed through his left wrist, even worse the second time, through scar and skin and bone, one swift stroke. Until his fingers no longer moved, until the stump of his handless arm soaked the white sand crimson, until it was gone, everything was gone, until darkness was whirling up to catch him, and all Killian could hear was screaming.


	25. Chapter 25

_**Six Years Later** _

"Mom?" Her son's voice came from behind her as she was digging crossly in the pantry, certain that they had at least half a can of Folgers left and _somebody was getting fucking hurt_ if her coffee did not produce itself this instant. "I've got a question."

"Just a second, kid." Emma rubbed a hand across her face, growled something under her breath that she normally would have said out loud, and resumed her search. Yes, thank you Jesus, it had gotten shoved back behind the ramen. She pulled it out, measured a few scoopfuls like an addict cutting the crack with a credit card, and punched the switch of the percolator, which began to grumble and growl. Once she was certain that it required no further assistance from her, she turned back, carried her toast to the breakfast table, and sat down across from him. "Yeah?"

David gazed at her seriously. "Do I have a brother?"

Emma almost choked on her toast, and hastily swallowed it before she could, feeling her heart start to race. "I – no. No, you don't. What on earth would make you think that?"

"I dreamed about it." David looked pensively at his Cheerios, turning soggy in their Batman bowl. He was a ridiculously precocious six-year-old, lively and mischievous and a total mini-heartbreaker with his mop of black hair and wide blue eyes, a light scattering of freckles; strangers stopped Emma on the street all the time to tell her that she should sign him up for child modeling or an ad agency or something. She always flatly refused. Money might be tight, but she wasn't going to make her son shill for clothing chain stores or insurance company commercials, grow up in front of cameras and be the family breadwinner before his age hit double digits. She had too much pride for that.

"Dreamed about it?" Oh, hell.

"Yeah." David glanced up earnestly. "Last night. He came to me and said his name was Henry, and that we had a job to do together. He said I needed to tell you."

Emma realized that her hands were shaking. To disguise it, she got up smartly, pivoted across the cramped kitchen to the coffeemaker, and decanted it into her mug, straight and black as tar. When she'd put down a good few scalding sips, she topped it up, came back, and said, "You probably just had too much sugar, hon. I know that you – "

David got a stubborn look. "He said it was _important_ that he was here. On your birthday."

 _My birthday._ Emma blew out a breath. Fuck her if it wasn't. Her twenty-eighth, yesterday, which she hadn't even been here for since she was out late trapping a mark. David must have helped himself to the cupcakes, continuing the pattern established for his young life: he'd started first grade this fall and was already a latchkey kid, letting himself in and knowing to wait for the neighbor to come over and make him dinner and help him with his homework, sit him quietly in a corner with a book, then put him to bed if (as was usually the case) Emma wasn't home yet. _But I'm lucky to have this job. Lucky to have this place. Lucky to have anything._

It hadn't taken a rocket scientist to work out what had happened, when she returned from London six years ago. Especially the fact that her incoherent story about Killian disappearing without a trace sounded an awful lot like some half-assed excuse cooked up to cover his escape, and the fact that at her end-of-year performance review, she was almost four months pregnant and the dates matched a little too nicely. James had told her that he personally wanted to make it work, but going forward, his bosses thought that the agency would be best served by deploying their interests in different directions. In other words, she was fired.

After that, Emma went into freefall. She'd left the Back Bay apartment, due to it being a) prohibitively expensive, b) completely child-unfriendly, and c) still too close to Greg and Tamara (who had never returned) and had to take a placement in the public housing projects instead. She managed to find minimum-wage work as the night janitor at the general hospital, and on a warm May afternoon, gave birth to David Eric Swan in that same hospital. Yet going back to a job that required her to spend hours on her feet so soon after having a baby was a no-go, and she managed to catch on as an insurance claims adjustor. But then her boss had let her know in no uncertain terms that she couldn't keep bringing a three-month-old to work – she had nobody to look after him – and that, likewise, was curtains.

Completely alone in the world, with a baby and no job, no money, and no home, Emma was up shit creek so far that she was about to hit shit ocean. She'd gotten in touch with her old roommate, Wendy, who stepped in just in time to save them from sleeping under a bridge, and paid for a new apartment – the top floor of a weathered clapboard row house in South Boston – until Emma could take care of it herself. Now that David was a little older, she could expand her work options somewhat, and finally landed a job with a quite different branch of the local criminal justice system: AFA Securities Limited, a bail-bonds firm. In other words, a bounty hunter.

Hence, this was the world where she was going to raise her son. South Boston was a heavily Irish Catholic working-class neighborhood, and it was a place for him to understand his heritage. Emma had considered moving, but by now she'd lived in Boston for almost half her life, and didn't want to uproot David, who of course had never known any other place. If she _was_ going to go, she should have done it before he started school and Little League, but that would entail finding a new job, a new apartment, throwing their fate into limbo again. And no matter how many late nights and seedy dives her bounty hunting took her to, it was the first time that she was making even halfway decent money. His college education wasn't going to pay for itself.

All in all, it was no better and no worse a life than a single mother could expect. Emma was determined to burst the sexist stereotype, and she'd always insisted that David follow the rules, go to bed on time, shut up and take his medicine, and otherwise do her best to raise him right despite often not having a clue how. He was a good kid, albeit headstrong and obstinate and able to get into all kinds of trouble if left for five minutes unsupervised, and she loved him so much that it terrified her. On nights she wasn't working, they'd curl up on the couch with ice cream and a movie. They'd watch it together, him commenting all the way through, and she'd cuddle him, holding his warm, solid little body on her lap, stroking his hair. He'd pretend he wasn't falling asleep, and she'd sing lullabies to him, carry him off to bed. In return, he would wake her early on weekends when she just wanted to sleep, crawling under the covers while she groaned and swatted at him. He was a dynamo of relentless energy, boundlessly optimistic, determined to take on the world headlong.

He was so much like Killian it was haunting.

Even if she _had_ wanted to forget about him, she couldn't. His face gazed back at her in miniature every day. It wasn't just the physical resemblance. It was the way David immediately picked up skills (and vocabulary) from the older neighbor boys that had her spanking him and putting him in timeout. It was the way he liked to swagger, to swash and buckle, to use his charm to wheedle his way out of trouble, to beg her for a pirate costume, to immediately fall in love with the plastic sword and fake hook and sleep with them for weeks. That was something else Emma had learned from Wendy Darling. About Killian's real identity, about why he referred to Gold as the "crocodile," and why he was over three hundred years old. Why the shadow wanted him, and just where it must have taken him.

It made Emma's head hurt to think about it, so she rarely did. In fact, for the last six years, she had furiously shut out anything not strictly devoted to her job, David, and their life. The thought of Storybrooke had lurked in her head often, but had to be shut down. There was no way she was taking her kid into that loony bin when she didn't even know what the hell she was supposed to do there in the first place. She'd given up enough. More than enough.

And yet, David didn't seem content to leave it alone. "He _knew_ things," he insisted. "Henry. About us. It wasn't a dream. It was a _real_ dream."

"No, it was just a dream." Emma sipped her coffee. "A dream dream. You don't have a brother. Trust me. Hey, what do you want to be for Halloween? It's next week, you know."

David shot her a look, clearly catching onto her clumsy dodge. "I'll be a pirate again. I don't want to make you buy a new costume."

Emma was jolted by that, hard. It made her feel like a failure that her kid knew they were usually short on money, that this was how he had been raised. And now this. _Henry. Storybrooke._ Things she had shut deep in the recesses of her mind and had not ever intended to let back out. She put down her coffee cup and stared at the tabletop, suddenly on the brink of tears.

"Mom?" David squirmed out of his chair and pattered over to put a worried little hand on her shoulder. "Mama? Are you okay?"

"I'm. . . fine." Emma knuckled her eyes, hard. "Hurry up. Bus comes in fifteen minutes."

David shot her a dubious look, but obediently scampered off to brush his teeth and admire his minty smile in the mirror, then be dragged out by her as she shoved his superhero backpack on, made sure he had his lunch, and carted him down the stairs like a mother lioness in the savannah carrying her cub in her jaws. They pushed through the screen door and out into the brisk October morning, and he looked at her hopefully. "Are you working tonight?"

"I don't know. Depends if Bryan calls me." Emma glanced over to see the Boston Public Schools bus rolling up the street, and crouched to her son's level. "Kiss?"

He pecked her on the lips, still at that young, innocent age where it was not at all déclassé to display affection to one's mother in public. "I love you!"

"I love you too, squirt. Have a good day." This was often the most time she got with him; if a call did come in that one of her marks had tried to skip town, she could be out past midnight, in who-knew-which sections of the city. This was a fairly safe neighborhood, looked out for by the aforementioned tight-knit Irish vigilantes, but she still didn't let David play outside after dark.

The bus pulled up, its doors wheezing back like arthritic buzzard's wings, and Emma waved to David as he bounded on board. She watched it down the street, kept smiling just in case, then turned into the house, bolted upstairs, and shut the door behind her, gasping.

She had to sit down and finish her coffee, then take a few swigs from the bottle of Jack Daniels she kept hidden atop the cupboards, before she could even attempt to think straight. Part of her was childishly convinced that if she put her fingers in her ears and hummed loudly, it would go away. But the rest of her knew, coldly and irrevocably, that it wouldn't.

Ever since learning it was the shadow that had taken Killian – that it was _Henry –_ Emma had driven herself in increasingly manic circles trying to work out how it was possible. She remembered their conversation in Oxford, when he'd told her that he didn't exist in this world, that he was only alive in Neverland. _Where do you think all the lost boys go?_ She _had_ woken from her coma completely convinced that she'd had a baby, and when she was giving birth to David, it definitely felt the same. Henry was that baby, but he was only conjured in some liminal space, the place between waking and sleeping, essentially a dream himself. Which made sense, if any sense could be made; she'd lost him, she'd dreamed of him, and hence he had some kind of existence in the ultimate place of dreams and lost children. _But a real dream._ Her mouth tightened, remembering David's insistence. Henry had visited him. Might be trying to take him too.

"No!" Emma said out loud, clenching her fists. David was her world, her life, her joy, and the thought of losing him too made her feel like she was about to throw up. The girl in her had been allured by Henry's promises of stealing her away to Neverland, to never grow up, but the woman in her was long past that. Such a simple question, such a can of worms. _Do I have a brother?_

The strangest thing was, she caught herself, from time to time, thinking that she had two sons, not one. Maybe the older one was some weird cross between a figment of her imagination and a ghost, but he was still hers, and she often wished – too many times to count, in fact – that he _was_ a real boy. He and David would look out for each other, play together, keep each other company, be best friends like brothers should. _My boys._ In the months after David's birth, as she clumsily learned to love him and care for him, she'd come to realize that she loved Henry too. That whatever he was, he was part of her. Many nights she lay awake in her empty bed, wondering if she would ever find him again. Both Henry and Killian. It seemed ridiculous that one had taken the other. Impossible. There was pretty much nothing she wouldn't do, if it meant seeing them again one more time.

But not like this.

Not like this.

She wasn't sure why she'd lied to David so reflexively about Henry, but it wasn't a truth that a six-year-old, no matter how bright, really needed to know. She wanted to protect him – and she wanted to protect herself. Telling him would lead to hours of explaining (read: lying) why Henry wasn't here, and that this was directly related to the fact that his father wasn't here. David had never asked her straight-up about Killian, but she'd heard him at night doing his bedtime prayers, cheerfully telling God in the uncomplicated theology of a child that he hoped the big man was looking out for him. So far as David knew, he had her, his mom, and their home here in Boston, and that was just how things worked. When he got a little older, though. . .

Emma sighed. _Maybe I should go back to school._ She was an alumnus; she could definitely get into a graduate program at Boston University, something in business or tech. Something practical, where she could go on in expectation of a good job, a nine-to-five outfit that would enable her to actually financially provide for David, without the shady characters and late hours and dubious legality of her bounty-hunting escapades. She was tough and street-smart and knew how to handle herself, but there had been several scrapes when perps trying to flee town were not inclined to be taken down peaceably by a blonde woman half their size. She kept a gun in the house in case they ever found her address, and lived in fear of David accidentally working out the safe combination. He knew never to touch it or even go near it, but. . .

But returning to school took more money and time that she didn't have. She was past the age where living on student loans was appealing or feasible, and couldn't currently see a way to juggle classwork, childcare, and a job, especially this one. She already had the neighbor look after David often enough, and couldn't pay more for the doubled hours she'd have to do so if she was in school full-time. Emma knew all the motivational-speaker crap about how the only limits were the ones you set for yourself, rags-to-riches, inspirational stories about making millions from nothing, but she was a single mom scraping by just above the poverty level, who had to work hard enough to keep her son fed, clothed, and loved. If it came down to whose future they could afford to sacrifice, it was hers, not his.

She took another swig from the Jack Daniels, then jumped as her phone rang. It was her boss, Bryan. _Shit._

She picked up. "Yeah?"

"Hey, Ems. What you up to?"

"Sitting around waiting for you to bother me, why?"

"Oh. Feeling feisty this morning." Bryan whistled. She could hear something playing in the background on his computer, doubtless ESPN or NFL or some sort of sports highlight video. Bryan was as much a friend as a boss could be, a three-hundred-pound saxophonist and big teddy bear of a black guy, but he was impossible to talk to normally whenever the Patriots, Celtics, Red Sox, or Bruins were playing, which meant he was impossible to talk to normally all the time. "So anyway, in news that will come as the most shocking of the twenty-first century, we have another AWOL. You open for tracking him down tonight?"

Emma hesitated. They needed the money, they always needed the money, but. . . "You really can't get someone else to do it? I've had like four in the last two weeks alone."

"But you're my best," Bryan wheedled. "Please?"

"I. . . actually, no. I missed my own damn birthday to do that job last night, and that guy was fucking crazy, flipped a table on me and bolted out of the restaurant. I had to introduce his head to his own steering wheel. He wasn't too happy that I'd booted his car. And I've barely seen my son for days. I pretty much have no life anymore."

Bryan sighed. "I keep trying to set you up with nice guys, you keep blowing them off."

"Bryan. You are a bail bondsman. Your definition of nice guy is anyone you haven't sent me to judo-kick in the balls."

"That is unfair. True, perhaps, but unfair. Have you even had a boyfriend since Junior was born? It shouldn't be an impediment. David's a great kid, it's not like he's flapping his hands in the corner somewhere."

"Try to be a little less politically correct, Bry. Just try. You are decreasing the odds of me taking this assignment with every moment your mouth is open, and they weren't good to start with. I need a night off. I'll be in tomorrow to deal with the paperwork from the last one and pick up my check. If the fucking courts are going to get it through before the next Ice Age. What's this one even about?"

Bryan, miraculously, paused the sports video and ruffled papers. "Couple of outstanding old warrants. Five-plus years. Looks like this guy is a pro at the running game. Let's see. . . wanted on drug charges, petty theft, identity fraud, shit like that. Busted during a routine traffic stop in Manhattan, but they discovered all his warrants were in this jurisdiction and brought him back here, where I, in my conscientious public role, paid his bail. Only now he's disappeared."

"He was driving in Manhattan? He's clearly an idiot. Yeah, I'm going to take a miss on this one. Try not to burn the place down without me."

Without giving Bryan a word edgewise, Emma hung up, tossed her phone on the table, and sat back. She was briefly at a loss as to what to do – she wasn't used to turning down work – and then reminded herself that the world would not spin off its axis and go up in flames if she had one lousy day off. She could surprise David and cook a real dinner, actually be there when he got home, redo her birthday properly, watch his favorite movie. It would be _Peter Pan,_ naturally. He adored the crap out of that movie. Emma, for her part, found it more than a little triggering, but she could grit her teeth and sit through it for her son's sake. He'd be so happy.

A slow smile spread over her face. Maybe she did need to think about getting a new job after all, or school, or something. There had to be a way, right? If nothing else, she could do it to give a giant middle finger to the world that expected her to fail. She hadn't this far. She didn't intend to.

Emma spent the rest of the morning camped out at the corner Starbucks, bumming off their wi-fi. When bills and such were paid, she had her monthly debate about getting a Facebook account – there was nobody she had to "connect with," and it might give crooks a way to stalk her – and as usual, decided against it. Then as she was about to close the browser, she hesitated, opened a link buried deep in her bookmarks, and surfed to the "Have You Seen This Man?" page maintained by Oxford University.

It had been a while since she checked it; she didn't let herself do so very often. There was no new information. The "last seen" date was the one he'd gone missing in a hotel room, inches away from her. The text asked that anyone with information on the whereabouts of Killian Jones get in contact with the British or American authorities. The university itself still held out hope that one of its most popular and dynamic professors would be found, six years after his disappearance.

 _I don't think so._ Emma looked at the grainy black-and-white photo of him, felt as always that sensation as if she'd been kicked, and hurriedly closed it. Bryan was right. She hadn't had a boyfriend, or barely even a sex life, since Killian vanished. Could count on one hand the number of times she'd slept with a guy, and there were no repeats. She refused to have third parties coming and going in her house around her son, and quite frankly, she had no interest. That might change if she finally got tired of living like a nun, but she couldn't imagine that it would be soon.

Emma closed out and headed back to the apartment, cleaning up, doing a few loads of laundry, and starting dinner. It was a chilly fall afternoon, so she turned on the radiator, which clanked like a sinking battleship, and put some music on the stereo. She even baked cookies, and felt like a sitcom mom as she let the mouthwatering smell waft through the apartment and waited for David to get home.

Only he didn't.

Emma wasn't worried about him being a few minutes late, or even fifteen; he had a lot of friends on his Little League team, and would often randomly decide to go home after school with some of his playmates. But after half an hour, she had a right to expect a call from the other mom, and when it didn't come, she began to get nervous. She yanked the last batch out of the oven, turned off the heat, grabbed her keys, and jumped into the Bug.

She followed the bus route to David's elementary school, sternly issuing cease-and-desist orders to her overactive imagination, picturing him being snatched by some pedo in a creepy van – or worse, some spooky shadow. _No. Will you stop that. He probably just lost track of time._ She'd get there and find him playing with his little friends on the baseball fields, arguing about who got to be Dustin Pedroia. Definitely not anything like what had happened in that hotel room in London. Definitely not.

Nonetheless, Emma's heart was going double by the time she pulled into the school parking lot, ran a once-over, and verified that he wasn't to be found on any of the courts or playgrounds. She headed inside, harried, and tracked down the receptionist. "Excuse me, I'm really sorry, but my son, David Swan, is a student here, and he's not home yet. He _was_ here today, wasn't he?"

The receptionist frowned, clicking through her computer. "We don't have a truant notice for him, no. He appears to have attended his classes, and left on time with the rest. I'm sorry, Mrs. Swan. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Ms.," Emma corrected. She always felt weird when she did it, but weirder if she didn't. "Is there any way you can find if he might have left with someone?"

The receptionist went to enquire. It took a while, doing nothing for Emma's agitation, and especially not when the receptionist returned with an odd look on her face. "Ma'am, the story I'm hearing is that someone saw your son get into a car with an unknown adult male. By the reactions of both David and the man, they assumed it was his father."

That hit Emma hard. Now she knew just _why_ they'd called her _Mrs. Swan_ , but. . . "Actually, no. David's father is dead." Close enough. Oh God, what the hell? She'd drilled the whole "don't take rides from strangers" thing into that kid's head enough, and the possibility that it was the dad of one of his friends turned awfully iffy considering there'd been no phone call or anything. "You have surveillance video of the school parking lot, I'm sure? I need to see that right now."

The receptionist hesitated. "Ma'am, I'm not sure that's – "

"I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I work in the bail bonds industry with a side of computer hacking. I'm going to get into that footage one way or another, but it would be a lot easier if you just showed me."

That did the trick. Five minutes later, Emma was in the security guard's office combing madly through the CCTV footage, narrowing it down by timestamp to when school was letting out, until she caught sight of David's dark head bouncing down the front walk. There was a car just pulling up, and he veered over, conducting a short conversation with the unseen driver through the open passenger window. Whatever he heard was apparently compelling, because he unlatched the door and crawled in. He shut it, and they drove out.

Emma's breath caught in her throat. She rewound the few seconds of film at least ten times, panning and zooming, until she finally got a bead on the make, model, and registration of the car. Out-of-state plates – looked like New York. What the _hell?_ She double-checked the number, already getting to her feet and fumbling for her phone, and broke into a gallop as she pelted out of the office and down the squeaking linoleum hall. The receptionist called after her, probably afraid that she was going to bring a lawsuit against the school district, but Emma didn't hear. She was already out in the parking lot, throwing herself behind the wheel, and putting in a call to her certain friend at the Massachusetts State Patrol.

It took him a minute, but he was able to tell her that the car had been spotted getting onto northbound I-93 about forty minutes ago, by a photo-radar camera at a red light. That was the last trace they had, however, and he asked if they needed to send out an Amber Alert. Emma informed him grimly that it couldn't hurt, already burning rubber as she accelerated onto 93. But due to the onset of rush hour, it was swiftly turning into a parking lot, and she had to make the agonizing decision whether to get off in search of a side road, or hope that the abductor was stuck in the same traffic. Jesus, why her kid, _why?_ He was the only thing in life she truly cherished. If she got her hands on the asshole who'd taken him – if he laid a _finger_ on David –

Her phone buzzed again. It was the cops. Target had been pinged on northbound 95 near the New Hampshire border. He was hauling ass. They were going to call their colleagues in Concord and try to get this transferred.

"Thanks," Emma muttered, then hung up, downshifted, and floored it, veering out of a standstill and onto the nearest exit. Back roads it was. David would love it if he ended up in the middle of a car chase and/or police helicopter hunt, but her, not so much. Her breath was short and frantic, punching her in the sternum, as she drove for at least forty minutes, trying not to panic.

No callbacks from the police in too long. She dialed with one hand, steering with the other, and was tersely informed, when the dispatcher picked up, that it appeared as if the guy was onto them; it didn't look like he was still on the freeway. They were trying to triangulate his location on radar, and were confident they'd soon pick him up again, but for the moment, they were flying blind. The alert had been issued, so perhaps a conscientious member of the public would clue them in. In the meantime, they _did_ hope that Emma was going to let the force handle this, instead of busting in there guns blazing and making it worse.

"Like hell I will." The Bug was starting to vibrate from how long she'd had the gas pedal flat to the floor. "That's _my son_ this creep has kidnapped. I'll hunt him down in hell if I have to."

The dispatcher didn't seem to be terribly fond of this idea, so she hung up on him. The further she sped north, however, the stronger her hunch got. She couldn't say for sure, as the last time she'd come this way she'd been tied up and gagged in the back of Tamara's Lexus, but the faint sensation on the back of her neck was steadily intensifying. If she consciously tried to think about where she was going, she lost it, but if she just kept on driving like a maniac (which wasn't difficult) she found it again, following it like a glowing thread, a primal migration instinct.

She lost track of how long she drove. A few hours at least; it was full night by now, and she was well off the interstate, somewhere on the back roads among the bare dark trees, her headlights carving swaths through desolate forests and thick scrub. Once or twice she thought she saw an animal's eyes glowing in the underbrush, but as long as they didn't jump onto the hood of the Bug, she didn't care. Time was unimportant. Nothing mattered but finding him.

At last, she saw a road sign blow by, but hadn't had a chance to read it properly, and couldn't go back to check. She just kept on driving, slowing slightly; she didn't need to get pulled over herself by some bored small-town cop with nothing to do aside from interrupting teenagers having sex in cars. In a few more minutes she was turning onto the main drag, and –

Oh.

Of-fucking- _course._

Emma braked so hard that the Bug squealed in protest, as she rolled alongside the boarded-up windows of the library and stared at the clock tower. It still wasn't fixed, apparently, unless it really was 8:15. A look at the digital watch she kept on the dash disproved that. Weird. Like time hadn't moved at all, which Christ knew might be the case or something in this drunk-ass town. Oh God. Seriously. _Seriously?_ Had someone come all the way to Boston just to hunt for –

But there had been that strange thing (one of many) that had happened when she'd escaped Graham, after his flat refusal to consider leaving the town under any circumstances. Like they were stuck here, or like –

Fuck this. Everything besides finding David was white noise, and Emma trawled the main drag until she caught sight of the car she'd been after, parked placidly in front of a restaurant. Granny's Diner, to judge from the flickering neon sign. She squealed into the open space next to it, flagrantly ignoring the "Loading Zone Only" placard, and jumped out, sprinting up the steps and shoving the door open with a tinkle of bells. "David? Oh my God! _David!"_

There were a few patrons inside: some old lady in a sweater who was probably Granny, a younger waitress with red streaks in her hair and extremely tight leather pants, and – stopping her heart – her son, sitting on a barstool with short legs swinging. Another woman, this one with short black hair, was hovering close alongside, clearly doting on him, and David, the little cretin, was lapping it up. Both of them, however, glanced up as Emma came hurtling in.

"Mom?" David immediately assumed an _oh-shit_ look.

"Young man." Emma sucked in a ragged breath. Relief was swiftly being replaced by all-out rage. _"You are in so much – "_

"Mom?" The black-haired woman glanced between them, clearly surprised and displeased. To David she said, "Honey, _this_ is your mother?"

"Um." David gulped. "Yeah."

"Interesting parenting." The woman shot Emma a cool look. "I'm Regina Mills, by the way. I've been looking after him. He's fine." _No thanks to you,_ her tone clearly implied.

"Thanks." Emma was pretty sure she recognized the symptoms of mommy lust in the way Regina's hand had tightened possessively on David's shoulder, as if loathe to give him back. "This was not by my choice, I assure you. I'm going to find out which lowlife took him."

"Don't worry. We have police for that sort of thing around here." Regina cut her eyes at the door; Emma could hear the scrape of gravel outside as another car pulled up. "We've taken the culprit away for a few questions, and don't anticipate him bothering us, or you, again. Now that that's settled, I'm sure you'll be leaving. It's a long drive back to Boston, and – "

Emma shot the other woman a narrow look. "Excuse me. Seriously. My son was just kidnapped. Forgive me if I'm not running away at the drop of a hat. I'm getting to the bottom of this."

Regina opened her mouth as if to say something, but the bell on the diner door jangled again. And, certainly not for the first time that day, Emma got another unpleasant shock.

It was him. Graham. He looked exactly the same as he had six years ago; not even another smile line or thread of grey in his sandy curls. He was muttering and rubbing a hand across his unshaven scruff, but his attention was directed to Regina as he said, "I've got him in the lockup. Hopefully he'll start talking by the time I – can I help you?"

He had spotted Emma, and took a step toward her. But there was no hint of recognition or alarm in the polite, neutral look he gave her. In fact, as they stared at each other, it became abundantly clear to Emma that he had absolutely no memory of who she was, much less that he had once violently attempted to prevent her from leaving this very town.

"Hey." She tried to sound nonchalant, but her hackles were going up. "I'm Emma. David's mom. You're the cop around here, so I'm going to assume you can tell me who you just locked up?"

"He's not a bad guy," David broke in, tugging at her hand. "Both of us are doing what Henry said. Really."

"Henry?" Regina's gaze turned sharp. "Who's Henry?"

"David's – imaginary friend. He's kind of a. . . troubled kid." Emma hated lying like that, especially seeing the hurt that crossed her son's face, but no way was she getting into that particularly thorny thicket with these crazy people. "Therapy. You know."

"I'm not in therapy!" David protested. "I don't know what you're – "

He was cut off with a squeal as Emma stepped on his foot, turning her brightest smile on Graham and Regina. "You said you apprehended the guy who took my kid? I'd like to know who. Now."

"He didn't want to give his name. Didn't want to talk in general. But I found this." Graham held out a small white square. A business card.

Emma took it, bracing herself for – hell, she had no idea. Anything was possible. But she recognized the name printed in neat black copperplate at once. Recognized, and felt it like a blow.

_**August W. Booth.** _


	26. Chapter 26

It would have been far easier just to die.

That was the one thought that stayed locked in Killian Jones' demented, clattering, tormented brain as he dragged himself down the sand, maimed left arm clutched to his chest, staggered by sun and pain and sickness, salt spray stinging his eyes as he sank to his knees. He stared at the eye of the world, telling himself that it was perfectly damned fine with him if his unnatural long life should choose this moment to go black. Die disregarded on some remote otherworldly beach, wash out to sea, lie forevermore among schools of fish and swaying weed as mer-children gamed with his bones. Then it would be over. The pain would end. He would be home.

But he was still too bloody stubborn. And, even after this long, still too afraid.

Groaning, gasping, he kept on clawing. Couldn't stand up, couldn't even dignify what he was doing as crawling, bent and broken, bloodied and blinded. But one hand – his only hand, now – kept pulling away the ground like a length of wrinkled cloth, over and over, over and over, over and over. Until the shore bent and curved away along the length of the brilliantly blue bay, and shadows came and shadows went, and he realized hazily that he knew exactly where he was.

He stared down the beach to the far end, where the sun-scarred, sand-lashed wreckage lay on its side like the carcass of a great leviathan. Its infrastructure was still mostly intact, but the rest had been stripped by scavengers nearly to the bone, its sails tattered and torn, its enchanted timbers wrenched out of its guts and used to build the portal that had sent him to the other world, to London. To Emma's world.

Another blindsiding assault of pain almost sent him flat again, but seeing it had given him a second wind. He tugged off the bloodstained rags that he'd knotted around his stump, tore a new length from his shirt, and swaddled it up again, then hauled himself to his feet and began to lurch, looking every inch a sailor marooned for months on a desert island, mustering his strength for one last dive into a mirage. _It will fade away in the heat. I'm seeing things. It's not here._

But one step after another carried him closer, and then there it was, prow looming overhead. He reached out and touched it, and it was solid. And so, he made his way around to the deck of the _Jolly Roger,_ which slanted up like a wall. He was utterly unprepared for seeing his beloved ship like this, the reminder of the price he'd paid the fairies for his escape and his new hand. _I swore not to turn back into Hook, and I broke that promise. Perhaps it's no wonder that I lost it again._

Yet he had no space in his head for anything except the immediate business of survival. Winding a trailing halyard around his waist, stump clubbing agonizingly against the weathered wood, he began to climb, scaling the ship until he reached the door that led below. Everything was tilted at a dizzying angle, so he was walking on the wall and the ceiling was the floor, and it was impossible to see more than a few feet in the murk. Rubbish of every description scattered the corridor, making him look carefully where he put his remaining hand lest he cut that off as well.

At last, after a hair-raising traverse through the crew's quarters, Killian reached his own cabin and stumbled inside. He had been worried that his weight would destabilize the ship, pulling it completely upside down and hence trapping him, but it was wedged fast and hadn't even quivered as he monkeyed his way through its gutted innards. Everything in his cabin was in the same state of disarray: maps, sextants, candles, quills, inkwells, rusted daggers scattered in an ankle-deep slew of debris and his ornate claw-footed mahogany table with all four legs up like a dead animal. His bed was skewed nearly against the ceiling (which was to say, the port wall) but he braced his feet and hauled with the very last of his strength, and got it flush against the floor (which was to say, the starboard wall). Its sheets were half-rotted and smelled strongly of mildew, but it was the most princely accommodation he could have dreamed of. He crawled under the covers and passed out.

Killian had no idea how long he stayed there, wandering the boundary between sleeping and waking, living and dying. After some time, he rolled out in search of his private rum stash, knowing it was unwise to drink alcohol so soon after being sorely wounded, but needing something for the pain before it made him sick. He crawled around on all fours, finally found an item roughly corresponding to an unbroken bottle, and wrenched it open and gulped it down, trickles running down his chin. The whiskey burned his throat and made his eyes water, but he took another few slugs, then got back into bed and passed out again.

He was dragged back to consciousness some godforsaken hours (days?) later. He had lost all track of time, which was unsurprising due to this being Neverland, but the gruesome task awaiting him could no longer be put off. He searched and searched until he found a suitable knife, then committed another unnerving navigation through the bowels of the _Roger_ until he emerged onto the deck, grabbed the halyard, and slid down vertically to the ground.

A brilliant red-and-gold sunset was just splashing into the dark ocean. The air was warm and lulling, smelling of palm and brine and coconut, by every appearance a tropical paradise. There was no sight of another living creature, human or animal or otherwise, for miles and miles down the sweep of the beach. He was utterly alone, the kind of private-island escape that some rich investment banker would have paid a mint for back in his world (somehow, indeed, it had become _his_ world). Now, it was the knowledge that the only thing standing between him and a slow, torturous end was his own skill and resilience.

Gritting his teeth, alarmed to see how much fresh blood had stained the shirt rags tied around his stump, Killian gathered enough wood to make a fire, and stoked it as high and hot as he could, grateful for the warmth against the deepening chill of the Neverland night. _I won't be nearly as grateful in a few bloody minutes._ He had brought out the rum, and drank it until his vision started to swim. He had to go find something to eat, but the state he was in, he'd not last an hour. He wasn't _completely_ unarmed – he had the dagger – but it was suicidal flattery to think that he was anything other than a badly wounded cripple, starving, half-drunk, and slowly bleeding to death, who'd spent years living as a scholar, not a soldier.

 _At least they didn't take my right hand._ His fighting hand, his writing hand. He'd be nothing without that hand. And terrible though it was, he'd lived three hundred years without his left. _They want me to crawl away like a dog and die, or else stay alive, but as a weakling phantom, forever reminded of what he was but unable to do a damn thing about it._ Bugger that. _Bugger_ that. If they wanted Captain Hook to remember who he was, he fucking well would.

This thought was cold comfort, but still comfort, and it gave Killian the strength to face up to what he had to do. He searched for water, found a fresh spring, drank as much as he could, hauled some back, and boiled it, plunging the knife into it in order to effect a rudimentary sterilization. Then he gingerly peeled away the bloodstained wrappings, sucked in a breath at the sight, and braced his good arm on the keel of the _Roger_ to keep it as steady as possible. With a hiss, a curse, and then several more, he began carefully trimming away the ragged flesh.

This exercise was cause to down another few gulps of rum when he was through, swearing and sobbing in dry, punching bursts. Then, since alcohol was the only disinfectant he had, he gritted his teeth, picked up the skin, and used the rest to douse his stump.

The pain was mind-numbing, especially when he pulled off the not-boiling but still scalding kettle of water, and rinsed it clean. He was afraid that shock was going to knock him out, and had to take a breather. Last time, his crew had press-ganged some local healer to deal with the wound, but such an individual was not to be found here. Nor his crew, and Killian felt another ache that had nothing to do with his missing limb. Pirate ships were not about to be mistaken for charity institutions, and he had not hesitated in dealing harshly with miscreants; he had not become known as the feared Captain Hook by accident. But by and large, his men had sailed for him because they wanted to, and their loyalty was deep and fierce. They respected and admired him enough to unquestioningly accept it when Milah became his co-captain, and did not turn a hair at the prospect of sailing down the maelstrom to Neverland. But they were all gone now. Claimed by the curse or by the more prosaic seaman's fate of drowning, drink, or debtor's prison, gods knew.

No more time to reminisce. He had to finish this. Killian thrust the dagger into the fire, stirring and blowing on the coals until they raged white-hot. He waited until the blade was glowing cherry-red. Then in one fell swoop, good hand wrapped in the last remnants of his jacket, he grabbed it, bared his stump, and clapped the searing iron to the exposed, bloody end.

This time, the pain was so ungodly that it felt as if he was tumbling head over heels down an endless black tunnel, pursued only by distant screaming. Down and down and down to the inferno at the bottom, but it would not even swallow him and put a merciful end to his suffering. Instead it went on and on and on, the stench of his own burning flesh in his nose, his entire body shaking as he retched, lying sprawled in the sand as the stars came out, as the fire dwindled down to ash, as he knew that he was sending up a literal smoke signal to every predator within a hundred miles and he had to get back inside the _Roger_ now.

He drew more water, as much as he could carry, so he wouldn't have to emerge again for a long time. Then he somehow summoned the strength to ascend the deck, fumble through the contorted darkness of the ship, and back into his cabin, where he rammed a candlestick through the latch just in case. Then he fell onto the bed, dead to the world, pursued by tortured specters and half-remembered dreams. Nothing made sense. It only hurt.

When Killian finally awoke the third time, he was ravenously hungry, badly dehydrated, thin as a ghost, and running a low fever. But he was more clear-headed, and while his stump was still throbbing, it was not unbearable; the pain had changed to the sort that meant it was healing. His makeshift cauterization job had stopped the bleeding and sealed most of the open wound, and he carefully stitched the rest, thankful that he'd burned off most of the nerves and barely felt it. Then he bandaged it, drank all the water he had, and decided it was time to get moving.

After another ransacking through the cabin, he managed to find a chest of clothes that the looters hadn't gotten to. He changed out of the ruins of his Earth suit and into the garb of his old (new) life instead: leather trousers, boots, blouson black shirt with a deep vee neckline, leather jerkin. He didn't want the long jacket; it would only slow him down. Instead, he cut a patch from it and used it to fashion a combination brace/cuff for his stump, then clambered out to scour the rigging for another hook, such as the one which had first given him his name.

To his delight, he located one such object, and after filing it to a lethal edge, carefully screwed it into the brace. It was nonetheless more for decoration than anything; his stump was still barely mended, and swinging it into anything was a very poor idea indeed, but enemies might see it from afar and decide discretion to be the better part of valor. And staring down at it, Killian felt a sudden, savage thrill. Pan and his gang of pustulant little arsewipes had hoped to unman him, but they'd only remade him. For that, they would pay, and pay dearly. Bloody Robert Gold or Rumplestiltskin or whatever he called himself could attest to the unwise nature of trimming Killian Jones short a hand and a woman but leaving him alive to fight back.

The first order of business was to find food. Having equipped himself with as many daggers as he could carry but wishing sorely for his sword, Killian descended the deck once more and dropped with reasonable agility to the ground. He returned to the inlet of fresh water, to stick his face into the stream and drink and drink. He lay there, panting and in pain but viciously glad to be alive, and then drank some more. At last, when his thirst was sated, he filled up a pair of skins, slung them over his back, and struck out into the jungle.

* * *

That first foraging trip yielded a bumper crop of fruit and small animals to roast, and subsequent trips yielded more. Making the wrecked _Roger_ his base camp, Killian hunted, rested, and ate for weeks on end, starting to size up the possibility of repairing it. There were trees aplenty in Neverland; there would be no lack of suitable timber, but it was the enchanted wood that he really needed. Otherwise, the ship would not be able to sail through interworldly portals, and that was precisely what he required it to do.

He vigilantly tended his stump against infection, and began to train himself again, drilling with hook and blade, pushing his complaining body to the limits and collapsing into bed almost too sore to move. But he had to. He wouldn't be left out here in idyllic isolation forever. Sooner or later, the Lost Boys would discover that he was still alive and in no mood for surrender, and then the battle would continue. How soon was soon or how late was later, Killian had no idea. He wondered how much time had passed in the real world. He wondered if anyone remembered that he was gone. He wondered if anyone cared.

Emma was in his dreams almost every night – on the occasion that he dreamed at all, that was. But it was a decidedly mixed blessing. He could see her, but never reach her or speak to her or touch her, and she always receded further and further down a long tunnel, until she was out of sight. It was a testament to his singular stubbornness that he'd managed to hold onto her this long at all; Neverland was wicking away the memories of all his old pain, all his old loss, begging him to bite the forbidden fruit and fall, to become Captain Hook for good again. To let go. _It would be the easy thing. So easy._

As easy as dying. And yet, for better or worse, he had failed to die.

And so, now, against the same odds, he must fail to forget.

* * *

Killian was almost completely recovered by the time he had his first skirmish, notwithstanding the various close shaves with animals he'd had while hunting. A Piccaninny scouting party, noting that the abandoned pirate ship had begun to look inhabited again, came down to investigate and was not pleased to find none other than its infamous captain in the flesh. A brisk dust-up resulted, in which they were convinced that it would be more trouble than it was worth to capture him and retreated into the trees, but this was only a temporary reprieve. Now that they knew where he was, and _who_ he was, they'd be back, and in greater numbers.

Thus, he had to either move camp or render the _Roger_ seaworthy, and having found his beloved ship again after so long, he wasn't inclined to leave it. This was the sort of sentimentality that might get him killed, but death could damned well take its chances; he'd punch the bastard in the face if it got too eager. But the logistics of the plan remained a motherfucker. It was not in the least likely that he'd be able to fell, haul, and transport enough timber to rebuild his girl single-handedly (ha bloody ha) before the Piccaninnies or the Lost Boys took an interest in things, and he doubted that the fairies would be in a great hurry to help him again either. Therefore, there was only one breed of Neverland's inhabitants that he could hope to appeal to.

Killian was not overly enthused by the plan, but had no other choice. He was hell-bound and determined to get back to Emma if it was the last thing he did, and if he had survived so long and so improbably in the pursuit of revenge, it seemed ludicrous to him that he could not manage the same in the service of love. So, one fine evening as the sun was painting vivid streaks over the lagoon, he climbed onto the rock and began to sing.

It wasn't long until the water began to ripple, and he caught flickers of movement, drawing closer and closer. Then they began to surface, long hair swaying like weed, eerie bronze skin glimmering, eyes silver and gold and green and purple, webbed fingers and scaled tails flashing as they crowded nearer. One of them laid a hand on his boot, not pulling him under – not quite. "Who are you, human?"

Killian cleared his throat painfully. It had been so long since he had talked to anyone except himself that his voice sounded strange. He held up his hook. "You'll know me."

" _You?"_ A hiss traveled the gathered mermaids, both scornful and admiring. Their relationship was complex; he had frequently been in touch with them for information on their mutual enemies, the Lost Ones, given them treasures and trinkets and occasionally a disobedient member of his crew, and in exchange, they'd generally refrained from trying to drown him. "We had not heard that you were returned to Neverland, Hook."

Again, it gave him a deep dark thrill to hear the name spoken. Why had he spent so long running away from it? What would the world be like, without him? He grinned. "I want to propose a bargain. You'll help me restore the _Jolly Roger_."

"And what do we get?"

He hesitated. Mermaids were fickle wee bitches, and you'd always get bit in the arse if you weren't careful, but no matter. "Anything you want."

The mermaids whispered, debating the merits of this offer. As they did, Killian noticed one of them near the back, one he had never seen before – which meant nothing, considering the length of his absence, though mermaids were long-lived creatures and could rarely be killed by men. He had never seen a mermaid with blue eyes before, and hers were, as dark sea-sapphire as – as his own, in fact. Her hair was red, adorned with shells and pearls, and she was watching him intently.

"You, lass," he called to her. "What's your name?"

She kept gazing at him, but didn't answer. She shook her head.

"That one doesn't talk." It was the mermaid who had hold of his leg. "No matter to you. So you want your ship back, Captain. You want the mastery of all you lost. What for, this time?"

When dealing with these creatures, it was best either to lie nonstop, or else be perfectly honest, and he had already started with honesty. "A woman."

"A woman." Glances all around. Jealous bints, the lot. "So you want to leave Neverland again, Hook? Take advantage of us and flee?"

"My business. Are you going to take the offer, or do I have to go to the fairies?"

That was an utter bluff, considering how unlikely the fairies were to help him, but the mermaids maintained an intense rivalry with them, and as he'd hoped, there were hisses and scowls. The blue-eyed one was still watching him as if transfixed, as if she could not turn away, and her scrutiny was making him uncomfortable. But the mermaids themselves seemed oblivious, and retreated under the surface for a brief conference before they returned. "Your bargain is accepted, Captain," the leader informed him. "We'll name our price when we see fit."

Killian should have been wary about that; any time a mermaid agreed to delay the consummation of a bargain, they were waiting for the worst possible moment to fuck you over, but he was too excited to care. He and the queen shook hands on it, and in short order, the lagoon turned into a boiling hive of industry as mermaids began to surface in their dozens and their hundreds, swimming to where the _Roger_ was beached, and dragging it into the water. It lay skeletal, stark, as they swarmed through it, diving down and coming up with pieces doubtless torn from other shipwrecks, patching it together and hammering it until it began to resemble a proper vessel again. The sails were mended, the rigging strung, until at last, shedding ocean through the gunwales like a thundering waterfall, it slowly hauled upright, mast pointing toward the stars. A lantern flickered on at the stern, illuminating its name. One of the mermaids, hauling on a rope, raised the skull and crossbones.

Killian himself stood on the beach, marveling at the efficiency and thoroughness with which this job was conducted. Then he waded into the water, grabbed the rope, and swung up onto the deck, finally restored to its proper proportions, hearing it thump satisfyingly under his boots. He took a quick tour belowdecks, and furthermore ascertained that everything was as it should be. Returning above to where the queen was leaning on the side, awaiting his approval, he said, "It's bloody marvelous. Well done."

Her mouth twitched. "Don't forget. We'll return for our price."

"I'm sure you shall." Killian intended to be well out of Neverland by the time their greedy little minds decided just how much treasure they wanted. "Thank you."

Her eyes narrowed as if she suspected the subterfuge, but she nonetheless accepted his word, and called in a high, shrieking ululation to her sisters. The water frothed white as they began to dive, but in moments, the sea was blackly and glossily calm again.

Killian watched them go, then strode to the helm, preparing to get underway. There was enough magic left in the _Roger_ that he could still captain her by himself, and his girl, once more wakening to his command, began to assist, sails belling out against the moonlit night and lines lashing into place. As he took up his place behind the helm, he saw with a pang that the letters he'd etched while teaching Bae to steer the ship – _P_ and _S,_ slashed through in a fit of despair after he'd let the Lost Ones take him – were still there. That made him think in turn of how he was all but certain that Bae had escaped to the real world, taken the name Neal Cassidy, and become, somehow, Henry's father. _His lad, and Emma's._

That thought was almost unbearable. Did Emma even know who Henry actually was, or that he existed here? But still more, there was the inescapable fact that Henry, that Pan, had taken his hand. . . and the empty, aching place in Killian's heart where he had always longed for a family and a son. He'd offered it genuinely to Bae, and far more cynically to John and Michael Darling, but time and again, he'd been spurned. _You will never be a father. You will never have a home, save this one._

Killian shook his head; it was getting harder and harder to chase out the seductive whispers. He had to take care. Otherwise he'd go down, and he knew from experience just how far the fall was. If he did, he'd never rise again.

One thing at a time. He had his _Roger_ back now, and that was enough. He ran his hand and hook along the wheel, caressing it, closing his eyes, breathing in the scent of sea and salt and canvas and hemp, then opening them and gazing at the far horizon. As the ethereal auroras banded the dark sky, as Neverland lay sleeping and somnolent in the sultry night air, the pirate ship began to move, scarring a wake into the still water of the bay. Very soon it had disappeared from sight.

* * *

Regaining command of his ship did wonders for Killian's position. As long as he stayed a good distance offshore during the day, and only came ashore, if at all, at night to resupply, he could avoid any unfortunate entanglements and glean a treasure trove of information. The Lost Ones, as he soon learned, ruled with an iron fist on the island's western coast, using the shadow to terrorize anyone who happened by and still in active hunt of boys to join Pan's gang. Killian observed these instances with scrupulous attention; the shadow clearly had the ability to move between worlds, flying between Neverland and Earth, and he began to wonder if there was any way to capture it and coerce it to take him back. If he approached Henry, if he tried to bargain with him. . .

It only took Killian a few aborted attempts, however, to realize that this was not at all a feasible strategy. He had no way of appealing to the boy's better nature, and trying it nearly got him killed, again. Even if Henry did still remember Emma, which was far from certain, he assuredly had no inclination whatsoever to help Killian get anywhere near her.

Therefore, he required a new plan. Nothing could be ruled out, so he raised his canvas to a strong southerly breeze and simply set sail, far into the wild and trackless waters between worlds, long out of any sight or scent of land, just him and the sea and the _Roger_ straining and creaking, as he steered her through swells and squalls and gales, convinced that he had in fact escaped and might soon see London on the horizon. When he glimpsed land, far off and distant, he was nearly certain. But the closer he drew, the sooner he realized that it was depressingly familiar. That it was the green jungle of Neverland rising from the waves, shrouded in sun and mist, and he had only sailed one vast circle, to end up precisely where he began.

He started to go slightly mad.

He talked to crewmen who weren't there. He hauled up lines and made preparations to sail when the wind was at a dead stop, complete doldrums. He walked hours and hours through the dark hold, humming half-remembered sea shanties to himself, watching the stars and lighting lanterns to signal passing ships that dissolved to nothingness in the night.

In a desperate attempt to slow the burn rate of his sanity, he took up writing. He'd always been slovenly at keeping captain's logs before, but could see nothing productive to be achieved by documenting his hallucinations, so he began to write books instead. There was plenty of parchment and ink, and it helped keep the organized, professorial, rational part of his mind in the forefront. Remembering the research he'd been doing back at Oxford, he wrote a new comprehensive history of piracy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and then a genealogy and literary analysis of classic fairy tales. They'd need a fair amount of editing, not least because he'd written them by hand while adrift in the waters of bloody Neverland and more than half insane, but he held out hope that they could be used to constructively contribute to his academic career on the vanishingly slender chance that he ever got home. They were substantial things, several hundred pages, and he was quite proud of them.

Killian was finishing the book on fairy tales when he finally caught wind of what might, at last, be a new chance. Someone had come to Neverland, someone neither Lost Boy nor Indian nor fairy nor mermaid, but another man, who was actively seeking to meet with the inhabitants of the realm and thought they might be interested in what he was selling. A merchant, a peddler, a procurer of rare and valuable items. Since what Killian was after was most certainly both – and since hearing those words had sparked an old memory in him – he arranged to get in touch with this entrepreneur, and on the designated night, sailed into shore, dropped anchor, and debarked.

He had acquired a new sword in the course of his perambulations, and strapped it around his waist, then shrugged on a dark cloak and hood. He waded onto the beach, emptied the seawater from his boots, and squelched up the sand toward the cove.

As planned, he had arrived some time in advance of his potential business partner. He drew his sword, stepped into the shadows of the palm trees, and waited, making no noise, utterly indivisible from the darkness of the Neverland forest, hearing strange sounds, croaking and crying – and then, at last, heavy footsteps and puffing. A short, stout figure, outlandishly decked in similar clandestine attire, was climbing the rocks toward him.

Killian's mouth turned up bitterly. Then in one move, swift and sharp as a hawk diving from the sky, he stepped out, knocked the bastard clean on his arse, and flicked the tip of his sword to said bastard's throat, holding a dark lantern aloft in his hook. It cast its light over an unmistakable red hat, a plump bearded face, and an expression utterly blank with shock. "C. . . _Captain?"_

Killian's smile, if it even could be called that, stretched further, curling back over white and sharp teeth, a full-blown madness setting fire to his eyes. "Good evening, Mr. Smee."

* * *

_**Storybrooke** _

"Okay," Emma said. "Well. That figures. I know this guy. He's been a pain in my ass for a while, and I'd appreciate the chance to talk to him. Alone."

She'd been expecting these people to make a stink about it, but instead, Regina agreed almost too quickly. "You don't want your son there when you're trying to interrogate his kidnapper. I'll take him back to my place. He'll be perfectly safe, I promise."

Emma shot the other woman a cool look. She didn't like the way Regina was already holding onto David, and liked even less the prospect of letting him out of her sight again, but unfortunately, she had no way to demur; she did need privacy to stuff August's head up his asshole. So she turned to her son and informed him, "Just so you know, you are in a whole lot of trouble, and I'm not going to forget it. But you're going with Ms. Mills for now. If anything else goes wrong, if anything at all is weird, call me on my cell phone _immediately,_ okay?"

"Okay," David echoed tremulously. "Please don't be mad at me, Mommy?"

"Oh no, buddy. No busting out the mommy." Nonetheless, Emma knelt down and pulled her son into her arms, hugging him hard, embarrassed to realize that she was choked up. Eventually she would face up to just how terrified she had been, how she had briefly been utterly certain that she had lost him too, but not now. She had other things to look out for, now.

Regina shepherded David out of the diner and over to her black Mercedes, and Emma trailed after them, Graham at her side. He offered to give her a ride, but remembering what had happened the last time they'd been in a car together – even if he didn't – she told him that she'd just follow in the Bug.

Five minutes later, they pulled into the sheriff's station, and headed up the steps. Graham flicked on the lights, then retreated into the glass-walled office and tactfully shut the door. He was there, and they could see each other in case he needed to hastily intervene, but he couldn't hear.

Emma drew a deep breath, then whirled on the prisoner in the cell. He had clearly been waiting for her; he didn't seem surprised. "Emma."

"August. You're going to tell me _right now_ what you said to make my son get in the car with you, or so help me, you will be eating and shitting out of the same hole."

He inclined his head. "I'm sorry."

"Are you? That wasn't what I asked."

August gazed at the ceiling, then back at Emma. "I'm sure you remember what I told you about this place. How there was a curse, and we needed you to break it. That I was your guardian angel. You. . . you were right what you said, back then. I've done a pretty terrible job. But one way or another, I had to get you here."

"By kidnapping my _son?"_ Emma lashed out. "He's _six years old._ You son of a _bitch!"_

"I deserve that." August met her eyes, imploring. "It wasn't the right thing to do, but I'm not good at doing the right thing. Still, I've had this date circled on the calendar for weeks. Knowing that when you finally turned twenty-eight, I had to find David and – "

"Wait. You've known where I was, and that I had a son? The _hell_ have you been doing? Sitting with your thumb up your ass, awaiting the opportune moment to fuck up our lives?"

August flinched. "The book," he said to the cell floor. " _Once Upon a Time._ It's been doing pretty well for itself. There's even talk about making it into a TV series. I was getting readings. Reviews. Prestige. Schmoozing with the literary elite. In other words, there was a lot of money coming in, and I. . . I was more concerned with living it up in Manhattan than going after you."

"But that book. . . I read it. It was practically fucking about _me!"_

"Yes." August looked painfully eager. "It was. I was hoping you'd see it, that you'd – "

"And all this time, you've been living the high life on the royalties from this book about _me,_ and _knew_ that I had a son, and never saw fit to share any of it with – " Emma almost couldn't speak. Thinking of the nights she told David she'd already eaten because she'd given him all their food, that they had to hide under the covers to stop the gremlins from getting them when in truth she couldn't pay the heating bill, the winter she'd walked everywhere in subzero weather because she couldn't afford either a T pass or to fix the Bug. . . they weren't on the brink anymore, were doing better since she'd taken the bounty hunting job, but that was a new development. "How much did you burn through?"

"Something like twenty thousand dollars." August's voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm sorry."

"You're _sorry!"_ Emma screamed, loud enough that even Graham, walled up in the office, glanced over concernedly. "You fucking motherfucker, I hope you fry in _hell!"_

Just then, something even worse occurred to her. "Manhattan. . . you were living in Manhattan? Bryan said that the guy I was supposed to go after was living there, before he got busted and taken back here. To Boston, I mean. It was you, wasn't it? It was you!"

August, looking stunned, shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Much as she wanted to lay every global malady from war to floods to famine at August W. Booth's door, Emma had to admit that her lie detector concurred with him on that; he wasn't the man she'd turned down the chance to go after. _At least so far as the bail bonds are concerned._ Feeling as if she was about to fly off the handle, she gulped down a few desperate breaths. "And now, as an attempt to atone for it, you kidnap my son. Yeah, asshole. Your sense of right and wrong is fucking screwed the fuck up. And you haven't answered my question, by the way."

"I was expecting it to be a lot harder," August admitted. "But I drove up to David's school, and he came over and asked me if I was the man Henry had told him to look for, who was going to take him to Storybrooke. I said yes, and he got in. That was it."

"I am going to _kill_ that kid," Emma muttered. Years of teaching him to be careful, to look out for himself since Boston was a big city, to not take rides from strangers, to borrow someone's phone and call her if anything was wrong, undone in an instant by some charming douchebag bad-boy author who was directly responsible for a lot of the shit in their lives. Still more, she couldn't shake the guilt that if she was around more often, if she really knew what was going on in David's life instead of getting reports from his teachers and babysitters, if she'd looked out for him properly, this wouldn't have happened. At least it had had a semi-happy ending, if this could be called that, but she still felt sick. _What did he get us into? What did_ I _get us into?_

"Who's Henry?" August asked.

"None of your fucking business." Emma turned and waved. "Graham!"

The sheriff almost broke something in his haste to extract himself from the office and rush to her side. "Emma?"

"Leave this loser locked up," Emma informed him. "Then can you please show me to Ms. Mills' house, so I can pick up my son and get out of here?"

"No!" August looked stricken. "Emma, you can't – "

She whirled on him. "No. You don't get to talk. You don't get to say a word. You get to sit there and think about what you've done. Think if you see anything whatsoever wrong with this situation, and if I hear one word about how you don't deserve to be where you are, I'll break your neck with my bare hands. Graham?"

"Emma," he said again, looking rather awed. He showed her down the steps, and once more, she followed him in the Bug to an elegant colonial-style mansion set back on a wooded drive. This was apparently Regina's house, and she sat still after parking, collecting herself; she didn't want David to see her so upset. Then she got out and trotted up the front walk, knocking on the door.

It took Regina several moments to answer, and she was clearly displeased to see who it was. "Miss – I didn't catch your last name?"

"Never mind that. I'm here for my kid."

Regina pursed her lips. "Yes, the child you were so eager to foist off on another stranger, so soon after he was kidnapped? Are you sure you're in the best state of mind to take care of him?"

Emma stared at her. "Whoa. That is _none_ of your fucking business. David? David!"

His dark head peered around Regina. "Mom?"

Emma let go a ragged, jerking sigh. "Let's go."

Regina glanced between them, as if she couldn't decide whether to boot them out posthaste for Emma's sake, or beg them to stay for David's sake. It was the latter who said, "Mom, we can't go! We're finally here, we need to do what we've came for! Like Henry said!"

"What did your friend Henry say, sweetie?" Regina cooed.

Emma shook her head violently at him, but too late. "He said we needed to break the curse," David insisted. "That once we did, there would be a way for him to find us again, and we could join him in Neverland forever and ever. I always knew it was real! I want to go there!"

A most extraordinary expression crossed Regina's face. She went pale, then shook her head hard, mastering herself. To Emma she said, "You're right. He clearly needs therapy, and unfortunately, it's a case beyond Dr. Hopper's abilities. You'll have to go back to Boston. Best choice for everyone."

Emma stared at her coolly, then held out her hand for David. Without another word, she led him to the Bug, and buckled him into the back seat before climbing behind the wheel. She felt lightheaded, almost giddy. She sat there a moment longer to be certain that she knew what she planned to do, then started the car and put it in gear.

"Mom!" David begged. "We can't go back to Boston! We can't – "

"Oh no, kid," Emma muttered. "We're not."

* * *

"Sorry, dearie?" Mr. Gold was the same slight, unprepossessing man as before, leaning on his cane as light streamed through the windows of his shop. Emma and David had spent the night at Granny's Bed and Breakfast, and after making a few enquiries at the diner the next morning, were directed to the pawnbroker's. But Emma had ordered her son to wait outside in the car. If this guy was anything like she remembered, she didn't want David near him.

"I thought you said," Gold went on, "that you were looking for an apartment."

"I am." Emma stared him down. "I heard you were the landlord of pretty much everything around here, so I figured I'd start with you."

"You mean you're moving here?"

"No. Not necessarily. But it does mean I'm staying for at least a little while."

"Well. This is quite a novelty." Gold moved down to open a cupboard and pull out several apartment listings. "I do have a few vacant units I'd be happy to rent you, Miss Swan. Just yourself, would it be?"

"No. Me and my son."

"Your son?" His expression might have been friendly, but his gaze was too intent, too uncomfortable, too scrutinizing. "Cherish every moment with him, dearie. They grow up fast."

"I know." Emma swallowed. "What about those apartments?"

Gold shrugged, then unfolded the listings for her. There were flats on the second floor of historic Victorians, a studio apartment in a quaint refurbished brick building – "next door to a schoolteacher, if that's of note, your lad _will_ be attending school, surely?" and several more, and Emma ran her finger down the lines, performing her usual mental budget calculations. Her decision to stay had been impulsive, and she was already starting to regret it, but she thought suddenly that if Graham didn't go psychotic again, she could take that job as his deputy if it was still available. That ought to cover small-town rent.

She was close to settling on a few she'd like to look at, when the bell on the door jingled and David wandered in. "Mom, I'm hungry! Are you going to be – "

Emma's head jerked up. "David! What did I _tell_ you about – "

"Miss Swan." Gold was staring at the young boy with a thoroughly terrifying expression. Taking in his face. His eyes. Putting two and two together. "Is. . . _that. . ._ your son?"

"Yeah. Actually." Emma lunged to wrap her arm around David's shoulders and pull him tightly against her side. She prayed he couldn't feel her trembling. "We're a package deal."

"So I see." Gold's lips peeled back in something far too unsettling to deserve the name _smile._ He was belatedly recovering, but the look in his eyes remained savage. Once he had satisfied (or dissatisfied) himself that the situation was in fact what he'd calculated, he inclined his head, his gaze never leaving David. "Indeed, my dear. We are all extremely eager to have you stay."


	27. Chapter 27

"My dear William." Killian's smile turned, if possible, yet more alarming. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"Yes. Yes, it has." Smee's eyes darted from the sword at his throat to the man holding it there, then back again, seemingly unable to decide which was more threatening. "But this isn't much of a position to do business from, Captain. . . if you'd. . . be so kind?"

"I'm thinking about it." Killian made no move. "First you're going to tell me how you find yourself in this line of work, again."

"Well, you _have_ been gone for years. Some of us need to make an honest living. I've taken a good job with a certain organization, and whatever you're looking for, I'm sure we have something to suit your interests. You may even suit ours. We're looking for subcontractors – hired local talent, if you will. They chose me to expand operations into Neverland, and they'd be more than happy to take you on."

"I don't need a bloody job. I have one." Killian removed his sword and let Smee see him sheathe it, but in case his former first mate was under any delusions that he was out of danger, he casually drew a single drop of blood before he did so. "These employers of yours. . . who are they?"

"Proprietary information."

"Ah." Killian cocked a dark, expressive eyebrow. "So loyal. I can't recall that being one of your valorous qualities, but well. Time _has_ passed. Are there more of them waiting out there, or did they truly send you in all alone?" He stalked closer. "If you no longer consider yourself bound by any sort of loyalty to me, surely it's understandable that I feel the same lack of it toward you?"

"Now, Captain. Let's not be hasty." Smee mopped his face with what appeared to be a pair of his grandmother's bloomers, touched the pinprick wound on his neck, and winced. "If you didn't want what I have to offer, you wouldn't have arranged this little rendezvous at all."

Rather than concede the point, Killian snorted.

"So, then." Smee, apparently encouraged by his head remaining in its accustomed place on his shoulders, sat up. "What can I procure for you?"

Killian hesitated, but of all the idiots to do business with in this or any realm, Smee was more or less the idiot he would have chosen. He knew how the man thought, which was a signal advantage, and while his reticence to disclose his current employer was frustrating, it was no more than a minor irritant. If they could get Killian back to his world, back to Emma, they could be Rumplestiltskin's entire family for all he cared. "I'm looking for a way out of here."

Smee glanced at the dark silhouette of the _Jolly Roger_ anchored in the inlet _,_ clearly puzzled as to why that would not solve the problem.

"Doesn't have the enchanted timbers anymore," Killian said tersely. "I used them to leave last time. And besides, even if I did have them, she needs a portal to sail through, and I have no way to make one. Can your mysterious friends help me with that?"

"Actually." Smee brightened. "It so happens that I know the location of a suitable quantity of magical wood."

This was more than Killian had expected, and he had to keep his heart from racing. "Where?"

"In the Enchanted Forest," Smee informed him, "in the ruins of Snow White's old castle. This is a closely guarded secret, of course, but my contacts in the industry have been running some tests on it, and could be it's just what the doctor ordered for everyone."

"What is _it?"_

"A wardrobe. They can't figure out how to work it, exactly, but if we used the wood to build into the _Roger,_ then. . ." Smee's grin broadened. "Then we wouldn't have to, would we? We could just hop aboard, fix up a portal, and sail to the land without magic, free as a bird."

Killian had to take care. He had to, but it was dangling before him, fat and tempting as a low-hanging fruit. "Who's _we?_ Last I looked, the ship was _mine,_ and nobody's getting on it without my leave."

"About that, Captain." Smee scratched his beard. "In exchange for me getting you to the Enchanted Forest and procuring the magical wood for you, you'd be expected to take a few of the organization's agents with you when you go. You see, there's a small situation in that world. Two of their best operatives disappeared some years ago, and they're trapped. There's also the minor complication of a curse, preventing any of the normal channels from reaching them. This case needs to be handled, and – Captain – you'll watch – what you're doing. . .?"

Killian twisted his hook further in Smee's grubby neckerchief, causing his former first mate to emit a strangled wheeze. "I am watching very carefully what I'm doing. If you don't stop talking out both sides of your mouth, you'll have no sides to talk at all. Explain. Now."

"You didn't need to be so threatening about it," Smee sniffed, as Killian dropped him like a sack of potatoes. "All right, here. The organization I work for is very interested in retrieving its two trapped agents from a place called Storybrooke, Maine, and completing the mission on which those agents were assigned. The eradication of that town from the map, and everyone in it."

" _Really?"_ Now that, Killian hadn't seen coming. "What do your apparently very terrifying employers have against the place?"

Smee shrugged. "Nothing, but the town owes its entire existence to a curse, built and sustained of the very blackest magic by the Evil Queen and Rumplestiltskin. It's wrong, unnatural, and evil, cannot be allowed to continue. If it went down. . ."

Killian began to see a multitude of possibilities. "Then so would Rumplestiltskin."

"Exactly, Captain." Smee grinned. "I knew you'd come around to my point of view."

Killian was silent, considering. This looked almost too good to be true. There was absolutely nobody in Storybrooke that he gave a damn about, and if his return could be accomplished by sending Gold to hell in a spectacular fury of flames. . . why not? It wasn't like before, he told himself. It wasn't as if he needed it to live, couldn't exist unless he saw it done. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to seize the chance if it was there. Take down Storybrooke, kill Gold, double-cross the agents (he was starting to think that he might just know who they were) and then book it to Boston to search for Emma (assuming she was still there and hadn't moved across the country, for which he couldn't blame her if so). Like as not he'd find her involved with some other man, shocked and unhappy by his return from the dead, but he didn't care. He had to see her. Even once. Even if only to bid her farewell forever.

Yet if not, if there was the slightest possibility. . . _A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets._ And he wanted her. Badly. In addition, if he helped dispose of Storybrooke, he'd free her from the burden of the curse. Allow her to live a normal life without a terrible destiny, rid of the crocodile's malicious shadow. What she never knew would never hurt her.

"You know, Mr. Smee," he said consideringly. "I do believe that I find myself persuaded."

"Excellent."

"So. By what means are we getting to the Enchanted Forest? I want to see it."

"I didn't bring it with me. Otherwise, you'd knock me over the head and nick it for yourself."

"Come now. Am I really so untrustworthy as all that?"

"Quite a bit more so, saving your pardons, Cap'n. But I promise you won't be disappointed. So here's the plan. You ought to be able to sail the _Roger_ through a portal from Neverland to the Enchanted Forest – there's enough magic on both sides that it should make up for the lack of enchanted timbers. It's just if you tried to sail it to the land _without_ magic that the complications would come in. To avoid that little pitfall, we'll head to the Enchanted Forest together, salvage the wardrobe, get the new wood installed, meet up with Home Office, and send you all on your way to Storybrooke. Easy as pie."

"Perhaps." Killian turned. "You said that there's a curse preventing everyone from finding Storybrooke. How do _we_ get around that minor loophole?"

"Ah. That." The grandmother bloomers made a reappearance, swabbing Smee's forehead as he had generally failed to swab the decks. "There may be one small part of the story I left out."

"Spare me. I nearly died of shock."

"It happens there's a compass. Valuable item. Useful, naturally, in navigation."

"And let me furtherly surmise that your employers do not have it in their possession, otherwise they _would_ have gone onto Storybrooke by now. Hence requiring a mercenary sort – a pirate captain, perhaps – to volunteer his services to retrieve it."

"Very eloquently put, Cap'n. Far better than I could."

"Slippery bastard." Killian thought about seeing what Smee would look like with a hook planted between his eyes, but didn't want to burn his ticket home. "So that's the other wrinkle? Once we get to the Forest, I risk my neck to fetch the compass, then take several agents of uncertain temperament to Storybrooke in order to destroy it? Seems a bit too expensive, doesn't it?"

"In exchange for taking you back to that world and killing the crocodile to boot?" Smee shrugged. "No, I don't think it's too expensive at all."

Once more, Killian had no ready-made counter, and pushed away the inkling of guilt he felt at the idea of turning the entire town, fueled by the crocodile's unholy magic though it might be, over to the rapacious jaws of Smee's home office. _No. I'm not going there for them. I'm not going there for anyone but Emma._ Innocents might get caught in the crossfire, but he was not about to let such things stand in the way. _I'll make it up later. If I have to._

"Very well," he announced. "I accept your bargain, Mr. Smee."

"Very good, Captain. Shall we prepare?" Smee crammed his hat back onto his head. "Let me make a quick trip back to retrieve our ticket out of here, and then I'll join you on the _Roger._ "

"Aye. There's the one small thing I need to do myself, before we depart."

"And that is?"

Killian's smile turned downright maniacal. "Load the cannons."

Smee was somewhat disconcerted by that, but departed, and Killian adventured back to the _Roger_ and swung aboard. It was a bloody pain in the arse loading the cannons and running out the long nines with only one hand, and he had only gotten half of them done by the time the sound of huffing, puffing, and splashing presaged one of Smee's usual completely conspicuous entrances, pulling up in a small rowboat alongside the pirate ship. _Could he be any louder?_ Killian did not want to have to _use_ the guns, but if the mermaids decided to surface for a spot of investigation. . .

Smee clambered aboard, managing not to wake the dead, and together, they finished the project. Killian wanted to try a test shot, just to be sure that the powder hadn't gotten too damp for use, but that would _definitely_ tip off the mermaids that something was amiss, and they'd be up here before they could get safely out into the bay. He doused the lanterns, stationed Smee with a lit fuse so he need only run to each cannon in turn to set it off, and steered away from the shore, heart pounding. He was on his way. He was starting his journey home tonight. It wouldn't be fast, but he was doing it. Once more.

The _Roger_ left a white wake on the dark water as they caught a current and a strong wind off the jungle, and he had to work hard to keep them on course. Picking up speed. Almost ready.

"Now, Smee!" Killian shouted. "Go!"

His first mate cocked his arm back, and threw. Something small and clear – something that looked remarkably like a magic bean, in fact – skipped out over the ocean, and hit.

The effect was instantaneous. An eerie green glow kicked up, spiraling down and down and down, a high-pitched humming vibrating on the edge of sound. The sails snapped, the lines strained, the timbers creaked, and the veins on Killian's neck stood out as he wrestled the helm around to bring them square about to the maelstrom. _And here we go._

The _Roger_ sliced across the waves toward the portal. _If Smee's not right about the magic in the Enchanted Forest making it possible to cross, we're in for the shortest trip of all time._ And what was more, in three – two – one –

He caught the first ones out of the corner of his eye, surfacing by the bow, reaching up to try to snatch at the ship, to arrest its momentum. Nets were flashing from their hands, their screeches shattering the peace of the Neverland night. " _No! You're not going anywhere until you pay us, Hook! You owe us! You owe us!"_

"Sorry, ladies." He'd have sarcastically doffed his hat if he had a hat, or a free hand. As it was, all his attention was devoted to keeping the ship plunging forward. "I'm afraid I'm leaving early." And with that, to Smee: _"FIRE!"_

For a moment, no answer, and Hook had just enough time to curse the bloody unreliable bastard anew. Then an explosion of flame lit up the forward starboard guns, blasting mermaids away as they tried to scale the side. Following it up almost immediately, the long nines spoke like thunder, scattering a writhing horde of them, hands still clawing as if to rip the bottom out from the _Roger._ They'd likely succeed, if he gave them the chance, but he didn't intend to. He braced his feet, laughing out loud, adrenaline surging cold and crystal and glorious through his veins. This was it, this was how he lived, how he fought. There was no match for it, survival balancing on the edge of a knife, night and battle and death and life and blood and fire, as he hauled on the wheel, the very edges of the portal now lapping eagerly at the ship. They'd make it. They were going, going, _going –_

" _Hook!"_ It was the mermaid queen herself, eyes alive with fury, racing alongside. "You promised! _You promised!"_

"I lied." He brought the wheel about sharply, shaking off another swarm, and Smee, displaying an admirable knack for not having to be told what to do, set off the aft guns. Now they only had the port side, and perhaps one more round from the long nines – if the mermaids stopped them before they reached the portal, they were dead. But Hook did not think so.

On the deck, just ahead – one of them crawling over the side, bloody murder in her eyes and a bronze knife between her teeth –

The pirate captain looped a lashing of rope in place around the helm, holding them on course, then vaulted onto the deck below, kicking the mermaid hard in the face just as she was flopping over the railing. Then he seized her by the hair, jerked her head back, and slashed her throat from ear to ear with his hook, flipping her thrashing corpse overboard into the frothing, screaming sea. The fury of her sisters raged like a tumult in his ears. _Bloody good thing I'm never coming back to Neverland._ Forever would be not long enough to make them forget this.

" _You will PAY!"_ The mermaid queen again. "Our vengeance will be written in your blood, in the blood of your children, of your children's children!"

"Too damned bad for you that I don't have any of those then, eh?" He grinned rakishly down at her, and the port guns went off like a bomb. The night was blown apart in a white-hot explosion, and with the knowledge singing in his blood like whiskey, like salt, like sex, like the blood of his enemies and the beauty of his escape, Captain Hook steered his beloved _Jolly Roger_ into the blazing portal and vanished from Neverland for good.

* * *

_**Storybrooke** _

Their boxes had arrived. How in the hell, Emma had no clue, but it was one of the low-level irregularities she'd decided not to worry about – now that she was officially staying here, she had a feeling that there were going to be plenty more. But she'd called her neighbor in Boston, dropped the bombshell that they were moving to some little town in Maine that no one had ever heard of, and asked if she would supervise the packing company coming in and shipping the minimal amount of shit they actually owned. Her neighbor agreed, though she sounded quite taken aback. Emma couldn't blame her. Almost five years in that apartment, and then they were gone like the wind, leaving barely the decency of an explanation in their wake.

She would have returned to Boston herself to supervise the move, but she was terrified of leaving David behind in Storybrooke and not being able to find the town again, or them both leaving and then. . . God knew what. She had phoned the relevant law enforcement personnel and informed them that the Amber Alert could be called off, but she got a distinct vibe of bemusement from them as well: she'd found David and was moving to. . . the town the kidnapper had taken him to? In fact, nobody in what was very suddenly her old life could understand why she'd jettison the bright lights and big city, and she was forced to resort to platitudes about wanting to raise her son in a small town and get out of the rat race and the usual other reasons why people suddenly upped stakes and went to "reinvent" themselves in the country. Bryan, when she called to put in her notice that she was quitting at AFA in order to take a gig as a deputy sheriff in the ass-backwards of beyond, openly wondered if she'd lost her mind. Emma couldn't entirely disagree.

Due to the downtime between paychecks, however, and her finely honed frugal instincts, she'd rented the cheapest apartment available. It would have been considered _très chic_ in any of the parts of Boston (which was to say, all of them) gentrifying at the speed of light, with its vintage décor and exposed brick wall and loft, but here, she got the sense that it had lain empty for a long time. The kitchen was very eighties, with fake wooden paneling, and the shag carpet was some hideous shade of vomit; Gold, eyeing it critically, remarked, "I've been meaning to get that removed." Apparently he had. Within the day, as soon as Emma signed the lease, a man showed up to do the job, revealing unexpectedly beautiful hardwood floors – with an energetic six-year-old in residence, new carpet would be stained and dirty all the time anyway. But it made her strangely suspicious. Gold didn't strike her as a guy who turned down a chance to make money, and this apartment had just been vacant, offensive carpet intact, for decades? There had been absolutely no one else to rent it to?

Nonetheless, she was satisfied. It was on the top floor of the refurbished old brick building, and there was a kitchen, a bathroom, a sleeping nook for her, the loft for David, and a small living area. The school bus stopped right at the corner, and once she convinced the district back in Boston that she wasn't going to sue them and got his records transferred, he was going to start at Storybrooke Elementary. Assuming they arrived. The boxes of their stuff had – the packing company had probably just scrawled the address on there and said, "Screw it" – but public schools were enough of a quagmire even without potential curses in the equation.

 _Who knows. What the hell._ Emma sat back on her heels, dismayed at how much somehow remained to be unpacked. Yet their possessions looked awfully scanty; she'd let the thrift shop haul off the beds and chairs and couch, as this place had come furnished. David had been "helping" her, but after an hour of his brand of help, she yelled at him to go outside and play. He'd sloped out, miffed, and while she was making better time on her own, now she felt guilty instead. Graham had also offered to come by and lend a hand, but she'd given him a funny look and told him that he could back off. She had it covered.

Still, her chances of finishing before Christmas were starting to look pretty thin. She wanted to stop for a snack, but they hadn't gone grocery shopping yet, and she should probably go down and check on David, who was in love with the expansive green backyard and was already busy having all sorts of adventures. She didn't _think_ there were any perverts hiding in the bushes, but it would take her a long time to lose her Boston instincts, even if this place actually was as safe and sleepy as it looked. And considering the way both Regina and Gold had been eyeballing her son, she wasn't sure. If either of them got even the barest idea that they were –

"Excuse me? Are you my new neighbor?"

Emma jerked up, staring at the open door. Poised awkwardly in its frame was a young woman with a short black pixie cut, a demurely buttoned white sweater, and a paisley-print skirt, holding a plate of cookies in front of her like a peace offering. "I'm Mary Margaret, I live downstairs. I can't believe someone's actually moving in!"

 _Mary Margaret._ Emma was going to have to get used to this, the pain of almost thinking it was possible, before remembering that it wasn't, that August had probably just cribbed names from local residents to use in his story. It was safer than actually believing. Then she'd want it too much, she'd be too vulnerable, and Emma Swan was all out of wanting, of thinking that anyone would come back to her – her parents, Neal, Henry, Killian, _anyone_. David was all she had.

Still, she realized that not to answer would be rude, and contorted her face into a smile. "Hey. I'm Emma. This is a big event, apparently. Is there something horrible about this place that I should know, like it's haunted or there's a dead body in the couch or carbon monoxide in the filters, and that's why nobody ever rents it?"

Mary Margaret looked startled. "Oh no, this is a great building. It's just that nobody's ever lived up here as. . . as long as I can remember. I didn't even know this unit existed."

 _Weird._ And something to run past Gold, oh-so-casually, when she saw him again, as she was sure she would. Nonetheless, Emma wiped her grubby hands on her jeans and got to her feet. "Oh hey, cookies? Sweet, I'm starving. My son will love them too. David."

"That must be him I saw in the backyard." Mary Margaret bustled in and set the cookies on the bare kitchen counter "How old is he?"

"Six." Emma had endured enough of these conversations to know that Mary Margaret would either notice she had said nothing about a husband or boyfriend and tactfully not mention it, or else go straight for the "where's his dad?" haymaker. "Getting into his new first grade class soon, I hope."

"Really?" Mary Margaret beamed. "I'm a teacher at the elementary school! I'll see him there?"

"Probably. I'll be working most of the time. I took a job at the sheriff's office."

"Deputy?" Mary Margaret guessed. "You don't look like the kind of girl to sit behind a desk."

Despite herself, Emma was grudgingly impressed. "Yeah. Um, hey. About Graham. He doesn't have a. . . reputation or anything, does he?"

Mary Margaret looked startled. "What?"

"You know, cops sometimes have rumors about them, especially in places like this, and I was just wondering if he was. . . all there. He's never tried to hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it, has he? He's never tried to hurt, like, you?"

The other woman looked even more taken aback. "No, Graham's never tried to hurt me – or anyone, as far as I know. He's a perfect gentleman, and from what I saw of the two of you coming out of the station this morning, he certainly wouldn't hurt _you."_

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, I just. . ." A flush was creeping up Mary Margaret's pale cheeks. "Oh, I'm sorry, I just thought. . . it was obvious that he. . . that he. . ."

"Yes?"

"That he has, you know. Eyes for you." Mary Margaret cringed. "I am _so_ sorry. You are probably convinced that I'm the snooping spinster with too much time on her hands, who pries into the personal lives of her neighbors before they've even moved in. I'm not, I swear."

 _Eyes for you._ Emma couldn't say she was surprised. By a purely objective metric, she was an attractive woman. She got a lot of male attention, and most of them were a lot less subtle about it than Graham Humbert, handsome, scruffy sheriff of small town and possible psychotic double-personalitied killer. But considering that he was now her boss and all. . . "Yeah, that's sweet, but no. I don't date."

"Is it because of – " Mary Margaret, realizing in the nick of time that she was about to transgress far beyond the boundaries of polite getting-to-know-you conversation, stopped dead. "Oh God. I'm making this worse. I'll go. I'll go."

"No, it's all right." Despite herself, Emma felt an awkward liking for her shy schoolteacher neighbor, and schmoozing her up couldn't hurt for the inevitable late nights she'd have to ask her to look after David. "I take it you don't go out much either? What's the deal around here? Good men hard to find, hard men good to find, or what?"

"I'm single. Not really a hot date." Mary Margaret flapped a hand self-deprecatingly. "Whale flirts with me – Dr. Whale, look out for him, he'll go for anything as long as it's female and breathing – but yeah, no. Actually. . . there is someone else. Sort of. Not really. Funny, he. . ."

"Funny, he what?" Emma prodded.

"Nothing. I just. . . just with your son, it made me think, this guy's name is David too."

Oh, Jesus. "David Nolan?" _You were called Emma Nolan, then._

Mary Margaret looked stunned. "How did you – "

"Lucky guess. I met him a. . . while ago. But I thought you said you were single?"

"I am!" Mary Margaret's look turned to horror. "We're not actually seeing each other. He probably doesn't know that I exist. He's. . . kind of unattainable. Married. Very married."

"Sucks. Been there." Emma bit into a cookie, which was warm, fresh, and delicious. "Hey, these are awesome. You definitely need to stay and make sure I don't eat them all myself."

Mary Margaret was induced to do so, and then insisted on helping Emma with the unpacking. Emma wasn't about to turn down another pair of hands, and after a peek out the back window to see that David was still safely occupied, she accepted. "Yeah, that will probably go better than trying to get him to do it. I swear to God I'm not a Stepford robot that has to have everything perfectly clean and arranged, but I'm kind of on edge, and I guess I turn into a micromanager when I'm stressed, and. . ." Catching herself, she trailed off. Why was she baring her psyche to this perfect stranger – who, for all she knew, could be a good buddy of Regina and/or Mr. Gold?

Mary Margaret, however, was watching her curiously. "It's all right. Moving is stressful."

"Experience talking?"

"No, actually. I've. . . never left Storybrooke." A faint look of confusion crossed Mary Margaret's face, and she shook her head as if trying to remember something, then slit the packing tape on the last box. A photo fluttered out, and she picked it up. "This is you? Oh, that's cute!"

Emma recognized it as one of the exactly two pictures that had been taken of her when she was pregnant with David, and grimaced. "Don't look at that. I'm the size of a house."

"No, you're adorable. I – I'm not trying to snoop again, I swear. . ." Mary Margaret, however, was still frowning at the photo. It seemed to strike her that Emma was completely alone in it, that ordinarily the portrait of an expecting mother would also contain a proud husband or beaming parents or other family members, but there was only Emma staring belligerently at the camera, hair down, eyes reflecting the light, bulging under the flowered maternity sundress that she'd bought at Goodwill after she got fired from ATF and was living in the projects, just to complete the poor-girl look.

 _Who even took that?_ Emma couldn't remember. It hadn't been an easy pregnancy: morning sickness for the first three months, uncontrollable cravings for the next three, and nonstop kicking for the last three. She'd worked as the Mass General night janitor up until a week before her due date, unable to afford any time off, and her water had broken just as she was getting off shift at dawn. After eleven hours of labor, David was born at 4:02 PM in the afternoon. She remembered the time exactly because she'd been staring fixedly at the clock on the wall, trying to get out of her body, trying to be anywhere but here. There was only one nurse who even bothered to hold her hand. They told her that she'd forget the pain as soon as they laid the baby in her arms, but she was twenty-two years old, scared and alone and broke, and as she was lying sweaty and spent in the hospital bed, she almost wished she hadn't gone through with it. Yet then as she cuddled David, that red-faced little burrito in his blanket, as his tiny perfect fingers closed around hers, it happened nonetheless. He'd gotten hold of her heart, and never let go.

"Emma?" Mary Margaret's voice, as if from far away. "Are you okay?"

"I. . . yeah." Her automatic, stock answer. Always _okay._ Always _fine._ If that wasn't the case, nobody wanted to know. "Sorry. Trip down memory lane."

Mary Margaret smiled, but her expression remained concerned. "You've been alone a long time, haven't you?"

Emma wanted to shout at her for seeing through her walls so easily, but there was nothing she could say to that. She swallowed. "Yeah. That kid is everything to me, but now we're here, and. . . I'm kind of terrified that the only reason David's turning out even halfway decent is because I've had so little to do with actually raising him. I work practically all the time to keep us afloat, it's his teachers and the neighbor in Boston and the parents of his Little League friends who have taken most of the load. Like, it's my worst fear that once I'm the one really taking care of him, I'll find out that I'm a completely shit mother and he'll absorb my fucked-up-ness by osmosis or something. And he. . . I don't want him to grow up like I did. I want him to have the best, I will fight like _hell_ to give him the best, but what if the best isn't me?"

Mary Margaret's eyes were very soft and very sad. She seemed to sense how unusual for Emma this burst of raw honesty was, and came over to hover at a comforting but respectful distance. "Don't be too hard on yourself. It's the world's most difficult job, being a mother, especially the way it sounds like you've had to do it. I always wanted to be one, but. . . I guess we play the cards that life deals us, huh?"

"Yeah." Emma bruised the back of her hand across her eyes. "I'm sorry. That was way more shit than you wanted to hear. More than I should have said, too. Don't hold it against me."

"Well, I've been the one inadvertently prying into your private life," Mary Margaret said wryly. "Hey, I know you're probably not the type for nail painting and gossip and shoe shopping, but if you need a woman's ear, I live right downstairs, okay? Please don't be shy about knocking on my door."

"I'll keep it in mind." Emma mustered up a smile. "Just have to remind you again that I'm not good at this. My default emotional setting is pretty much that of a fourteen-year-old boy. Don't take it personally."

"I won't," Mary Margaret promised, continuing to unpack. Emma herself drifted back to the window, but when she looked down, she couldn't see David in the thickets of greenery. No motion. No kid running around slaying imaginary dragons with a vorpal blade or sailing on a pirate ship or whatever. Nothing.

"David?" Emma's heart started to gain speed. "Oh Jesus, not again! I am going to get a fucking _beeper_ for that kid!"

Mary Margaret looked up in alarm. "What?"

"He's not in the yard." Emma was already pulling on her shoes and heading for the stairs, clattering down three flights to the back door and pushing it open. A quick glance confirmed that David was definitely not there, and when she ran around the side of the house, similarly nada. There was a car just turning the corner at the end, not August's, which was good for August not getting his balls tied around his throat, but –

"That's odd," Mary Margaret said from behind Emma, startling her badly. Apparently the other woman had followed her down. "Gold never comes around here unless it's rent day."

Emma turned with a jolt. "Gold? As in the one and only?"

"Yes. That's his car." Mary Margaret looked puzzled. "What?"

"Excuse me." Emma was already fumbling in her jeans pocket for her keys. "I've got to run."

* * *

_**The Enchanted Forest** _

Captain Hook and Mr. Smee emerged from their dramatic portal-jump more or less in one piece, although quite waterlogged, nerve-wracked, and in Hook's case, with several slashes in his long leather jacket where the mermaids' knives had done some moderate amount of damage. But the _Jolly Roger_ was now anchored in the deep bay before the ruined castle, snowcapped mountains looming impressively to all sides and the call of gulls echoing in the clear, still, salt-smelling air. Sunlight slanted through the sails as the pirate ship rode at anchor, recovering.

Hook could barely believe that they had actually made it out of Neverland, and anything by comparison looked like paradise, but even in the short time they'd been here, his intuition was telling him that something was wrong. There was no discounting the damage the Dark Curse had wreaked on the land, but this was different. Something or someone – Smee's employer, apparently – had made the castle into headquarters, and was riding with a heavy hand on the reins. This did not look like a land peacefully settled, but rather ruthlessly subjugated, and as they lowered the longboat and prepared to make introductions, he was already firmly on his guard. _I've got out of one bloody mess, but have I landed smack in the middle of another?_

They rowed ashore, hid the longboat, and set off. They passed various checkpoints; the guards clearly recognized Smee, and some recognized Hook as well, if the amusing double takes they did were any indication. Well, he did have three hundred years of a reputation to precede him, and doubtless they'd heard hair-raising tales as mere tots, never expecting to come face to face with the genuine article. He did absolutely nothing to correct this useful impression. A pinch of terror went a long way.

They were escorted into the sacked great hall of the castle, the sky visible through the broken stone vaults, and Hook loitered obnoxiously against a pillar just to see if anyone had the nerve to tell him to stop. They did not, though they seemed right peeved about it, and tensions were starting to heighten when someone who was clearly in charge elected that moment to make his entrance. "Ah, Mr. Smee! You've returned!"

Smee snapped upright and snatched his hat off. "Sir! I have, sir!"

Hook eyed this with sour amusement, wondering if _he'd_ ever got that much respect out of the bugger, then affected not to notice the man staring. Young, sword-slim and dark, with a dangerous smile reminiscent of the pirate's own. "And your guest? Can it be, Captain?"

"In the flesh." Taking this as his cue, Hook sauntered forward and made a bow just deep enough to look genuine and just shallow enough to feel sarcastic. "So you have heard of me."

"Indeed, I have." The young man's black eyes regarded him unblinkingly. "I'm the head of Home Office's operations around here, and I understand that there's a great deal of mutual interest on both sides. I am dealing, to be quite sure, with Professor Killian Jones?"

Now _that_ was an unpleasant shock. He had had absolutely no forewarning that they knew about his Earth identity, which was starting to feel as distant and foreign as if he'd once read of someone else living it. "Aye," he said, extremely guardedly. _What are you up to, arsehole?_

"I thought so." The young man smiled. "Yes, we know all about you."

Hook shot an accusing glare at Smee, who was intently studying his feet. He did not at all care for the revelation that he had been manipulated as easily as a dog jumping for a treat, and brought into potentially a far more dangerous situation than he realized. "How?"

"Well, we do control the place," the young man said, as if it was obvious. It was, in fact. "Almost the entire Forest is under our jurisdiction now, and there's been quite a bit of interworldly commerce since we grew the beans. We've been able to send personnel back and forth, keep up on the state of things. We've had plenty of surveillance on you, believe me. You don't think it's a coincidence that we sent someone to Neverland, when we finally worked out where you must have ended up? This has been a long time in the planning, my friend."

"You're not my friend, mate."

"Perhaps not, but I should be." _If you know what's good for you._ The young man considerately left that part unspoken. "We sent agents up the beanstalk, got rid of most of the giants. While they tried to destroy the beans to keep them out of our hands, they didn't get them all, and one was all we needed. We've been growing our own crop ever since, able to coordinate our efforts and expand our operations across several worlds. Unfortunately, there was one thing we didn't count on. Two, really."

"Let me guess," Hook drawled. "The compass, and the curse."

"Well done. I see Mr. Smee has been talking too much again. I'll attend to that." The young man turned that viper's gaze on Smee, who was visibly wilting in his boots. "You see, two of Home Office's exceptionally capable agents got themselves into a bit of a mess several years ago. They're trapped in Storybrooke, Maine, and we can't get them out, because we can't find Storybrooke. Due to, yes, the curse. We _can_ find it if we get our hands on the compass, but it remains in the custody of the last living giant, atop the beanstalk, and there's no way for us to scale it again."

"Really." Hook affected only the barest minimum of interest, but he was tense as a hound on point. "Why not?"

"It's been enchanted." The young man gave a rueful shrug. "And Home Office isn't particularly fond of magic. We _do_ have a prisoner who could be induced to help, but she isn't someone to trifle with. Thus far, she has refused, in no uncertain terms. Aggressive negotiations have likewise proved fruitless at changing her mind, and resulted in rather costly losses for us."

"Torture, you mean." Hook flashed his leanest, meanest smile. "Let me ascertain if I am following you. You need me to get the compass from the giant. In exchange, you'll put the enchanted wood from the wardrobe into my ship and give me a magic bean, enabling me to sail to Storybrooke and destroy it and Rumplestiltskin, thus liberating your agents. Everyone's happy. Aye?"

"More or less."

"One question. You clearly have a mole on the other side. Someone who's been reporting on me and knows about my circumstances there. Who?"

"Do you really think I'm going to tell you?"

"Fine, then. Let's see if I can guess. Likely in American or British law enforcement, someone familiar with my case, my profession, my background, and the fact that I've gone missing in Earth for. . . quite some time now, I gather."

"Close." The young man sounded surprised. "American, in fact. He was a hard sell, but we eventually brought him around. His former lover did some excellent work for us as well. Jack Antonsson. I can tell you her name because she's dead. Died in the line of duty. Very tragic."

"Doesn't ring a bell."

"Best hope it doesn't ring anything. Well, Captain. Tick tock. Time is of the essence for both of us. You want very badly to return to Earth, and we want very badly for you to be there. Once you've taken care of the minor unpleasantness in Storybrooke, you'll want your job at Oxford University back. You could do a great deal of good for us there."

Killian laughed out loud, holding up his hook. "And I'll just stroll into the lecture hall with this and tell them I had a nice vacation, shall I?"

"It'll be a conversation starter. Cause the female undergraduates to swoon, most likely. I'm sure you can think of an explanation. Clever man like you. The pirate look suits you well, but you'll want to remember the professor. That's what we'll require of you."

"You seem to be taking it for granted that I'm joining your organization."

"You seem to be taking it for granted that you have a ride home if you don't." The young man smiled demurely. "Don't want to disappoint anybody. Especially those lovely blonde students."

Killian did not in the least like the sly implication that the bastard knew something about Emma. His spine stiffened, hackles raising, but he forced himself to affect a jovial smile. "Indeed, we don't. So it seems we have a great deal to get started on, and chief among that would be convincing this prisoner of yours to help us retrieve the compass."

"Oh, Captain. That's your job."

"Is it?"

"Indeed." The young man waved a hand; clearly the interview was over. "My associates will show you down to her cell."

Before Killian could think of a clever parting shot, solely for the sake of having the last word, he was being escorted out by a security detail that, to judge from both size and smell, had to be at least part troll. Already concocting various schemes in his head to get back at Smee for leading him into this, he followed them into the dungeons, which Home Office had clearly embraced to their fullest purpose. They already controlled most of the Forest, were expanding operations significantly into both Neverland and Earth, and gods knew which other magical realms. _Bunch of run-of-the-mill would-be world-conquering despots._ He wasn't all that impressed; he'd seen too many of them in his life. But be that as it may, he was going to have to be _bloody_ careful. The game was on.

The guards turned a corner and descended another labyrinth of passages, lit only by torches, to the lone cell at the very end. A blue-gowned woman was gripping the bars, as if she'd been waiting regally the entire time, and Killian felt his gut turn to ice. _Oh, hell._

Her voice came from the shadows, cool and taunting. "Hello, Hook."

What else could you say to that?

"Hello, Cora."


	28. Chapter 28

Emma Swan was not one to advocate abusing one's authority. Heaven forbid. She'd never do something on the shady side of legal. Of course not. Not her. All those hacked computers and think-like-a-crook-to-catch-a-crook tricks and black market tracker drives were barking up the wrong tree. All right, all right, maybe she wasn't so clean that she squeaked. And fine, so she was presently tearing through Storybrooke's main drag at twice the posted limit of thirty miles an hour, knowing that being one of two cops in town meant that nobody was going to pull her over, and utterly dead set that if Gold had laid a finger on her kid, she'd take him down so hard that they could plant a flowerbed in his ass. Her mind was racing. Coming up here to stay. . . probably not the smartest decision ever, but the only way to face up to this phantom that had been haunting her for years, the whispers about a curse. Just a curse of morons, it appeared. And a curse of curses, considering what she was muttering under her breath as she gunned the Bug around the corner, squealed past a slow-moving biker, and –

And had to slam on the brakes, burning rubber as she wrestled to a stop, staring at the sidewalk bench outside the ice cream parlor, where David was happily enraptured with a chocolate cone practically the size of his head. Gold was sitting next to him, looking for all the world as if he was out to enjoy the warm autumn day. He barely turned a well-groomed hair as Emma slammed the car door and came barreling up the steps. _"What the hell is going on here?"_

"You have a very suspicious mind, Miss Swan." Gold pushed down his sunglasses with one finger and gave her a long, cool look. "Moving is such a complicated process, I only hoped I could assist in making it easier for you and your lad. Against the law to buy him a treat?"

"You could have asked me before you just whisked him off like that. Especially since he's developed this really terrible habit of getting into cars with men he doesn't know."

Gold grinned. "Ah, an adventuresome one. Just can't stop him when he takes it into his head to do something foolish, come hell or high water. Must get it from his father, eh?"

David looked up, mouth full of ice cream, blue eyes wide. "Do you know my dad, Mr. Gold?"

On the list of conversations she did not want to be having with her new landlord, this was A-number-one. "No, he doesn't," Emma interrupted, reminded all too well of the look on his face when he'd seen David for the first time. _Yes, he does._ It was another of those circumstances that made her certain she was a horrible mother: the fact that she was proposing to settle down with her young son in a freaky-ass town pretty much owned by his father's mortal enemy. "And I swear, if you run off with a stranger one more time, I am grounding you until you're thirty."

David looked startled. "But Mr. Gold – "

"Promising you ice cream is the oldest trick in the book, kid. I know you think you're onto something, but really. You can't keep acting like we're living in this fantasy world, where you can just do whatever you want and everybody's good and happy and trustworthy. That's not the way it works. You can finish your cone and say thank you, and then we're going home."

"I need to be getting along as well." Gold got to his feet. "I apologize for worrying you, Miss Swan, truly. I miss my own boy very much, that's all. No harm meant."

Emma returned to him the same cool stare he'd given her. "I'm going to come by your shop later tonight. We need to talk."

"Oh, indeed we do, dearie." The pawnbroker ruffled David's hair and smiled. "Listen to your mum, lad. I wish you all the best with your new home." With that, he limped down the steps and into his car, reversing out and vanishing away down the street.

Shaking her head, Emma retrieved David, stuffed him into the Bug, and hauled him back to the apartment, wiping his sticky chocolate-stained paws so he didn't make a mess of everything she'd just spent all afternoon unpacking. As she was engaged in so doing, and he was protesting, a dark head peered around the door. "Oh, you found him. That's great."

"Yeah. Whether he'll stay found is another story. Listen, I really hate that I already have to ask you to do this, but would you mind watching him this evening? I have an errand to run."

"I wouldn't mind at all." Mary Margaret smiled at the child. "Hi, sweetie. I'm your new neighbor, Mary Margaret."

"I'm David. You're pretty."

Emma rolled her eyes. "The ladies' man already. Ever smooth. Be careful he doesn't schmooze you right out of the house, because I bet he's going to try." She shot him an evil-eyeball. "If you get up to anything while I'm not here, mister, anything at _all. . ."_

"I'll be good," he promised, looking as beatific as possible. _An angel's face with a devil's soul._ God, _why_ did he have to be so much like his father? "Really."

While she was still extremely dubious, to say the least, she shook her head and pulled together dinner out of what little food there was. Mary Margaret ended up staying, as it didn't make sense to send her back to her apartment only to fetch her again, and the three of them ate together, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Watching her son and Mary Margaret interact, Emma could tell that the other woman was already quite taken with him, but it didn't creep her out, as it had with Regina. It seemed almost. . . natural. Easy. Familial. But she didn't want to go that far. Not until she talked to Gold.

After dinner, Emma grabbed her keys again. "Yeah, so, I hope this will only be an hour or so, but I don't know. I – I can pay you if you want – "

Mary Margaret shook her head. "No, you don't have to. I don't mind at all." She glanced at David. "Hey buddy, you got any board games you want to play? Or books to read? I'm open to suggestions. Let's have some fun."

Seeing that they were off to the races – Mary Margaret was an elementary school teacher, she could probably handle herself just fine with young kids, even rambunctious six-year-old boys – Emma pulled on her leather jacket and trotted downstairs. It was cold enough when she emerged into the night that she could see her breath; it _was_ the end of October, and they were pretty far north in Maine. It was also quiet, something she was very unused to after years of Boston clamor, and there was something lulling about the stillness. As much as she'd been in motion, frazzled, freaking out, running across half of New England in pursuit of her damn kid, who seemed determined to give her a heart attack before the age of thirty, there was also something. . . real. True. Good. Like it mattered that she'd come here, and that she'd stayed.

It wasn't much, perhaps. But it gave Emma the strength to climb into the Bug, start it up, and flick on the headlights, then rumble down the street, through town toward the pawnshop.

There was a light glimmering in the window when she pulled up. It felt an awful lot like going on one of her bounty-hunting busts, and she opened the glove compartment and took out her gun, making sure the safety was on before she stashed it in her jacket pocket. She didn't _really_ think she'd have to use it, but she remembered very well what had happened the last time she was here – with Gold, Belle, Greg, Tamara, and Killian. She'd be crazy to go in completely unarmed.

Emma expelled another slow breath and got out. She headed up the walk and tried the door, expecting it to be locked. It wasn't. She stepped inside.

"Hello, Miss Swan." Gold barely glanced up from where he was standing at the far end of the counter, methodically polishing something. "Punctual, aren't you?"

She couldn't decide if that was an insult spoken in a compliment's tone, or a compliment spoken in an insult's tone. Either way, this night promised to be interesting. Probably too much so. "If you want to call it that." She strode closer, the heels of her boots rapping on the hardwood floor. "What the hell was today actually about?"

He glanced up, guileless as a lamb. "That's where you start? I told you. I miss my own boy and wanted to buy your lad a treat. Welcome him to town. Must everything have an ulterior motive?"

"Bullshit. You wanted to get my attention. All right. You did."

A strange little smile twisted the corner of the pawnbroker's mouth. "Admirably direct, dearie. I'm glad to see we understand each other. Since you are, I shall feel comfortable being likewise. Where is young David's father?"

"He's. . . gone. Dead."

"Really?" Gold arched an eyebrow. "Don't expect that you're the only one here who thinks they have a knack with lies, my dear."

"I don't know what you're talking about. David's dad was. . . just a guy I met while I was working for ATF in Boston, right after I graduated from college. We met at a bar, had our fun, and went our separate ways. Few years later, the cops knocked on my door in the middle of the night. They'd fished him out of the Charles River and wanted to know if I knew anything. I didn't. He's probably still in the cold cases file if you want to take a look. I wasn't too broken up. We were never in any kind of emotional relationship. Like I said. One-nighter. But I don't think the kid really needs to know that."

"That is an impressive fable, I grant you." Gold continued to polish the item: a mahogany case lined with crushed velvet, containing a sword. A pretty good-sized one, not your average aluminum stage prop. It had a golden crosspiece and hilt, a tapered and fullered blade, an edge still sharp enough to cut that gleamed when he lifted it and turned it. The threat was implicit. "Now may I have the truth, please?"

Emma hesitated. "Why?"

"Because unless I'm much mistaken, you're here to ask me a few things. About what I know. About this place. About your destiny. And unless you want your answers to be as much nonsensical rubbish as the one you just tried to peddle off, you'll tell me where Killian Jones is."

Hearing the name spoken aloud, after all these years of sometimes almost wondering if she'd dreamed him, sent a freezing shot of adrenaline down her back. It was no good trying to lie to Gold, she realized. The jig was up, and he'd known the truth ever since he first laid eyes on David, had her dead to rights this entire time. "I don't know."

"Left you behind?" Gold's smile turned even more twisted. "Just like the rest?"

"Shut up."

"Touched a nerve, I see. Your anger is understandable. But I feel obliged to warn you that I don't normally permit people to storm into my shop and throw their weight around, and whether or not you're the deputy sheriff, I won't be making exceptions for you. Come now, Miss Swan. Work with me. You don't want me as your enemy, I promise, and there is so much we could do for each other. Now. When did you last see our mutual friend, Mr. Jones?"

She hesitated even longer, loathing, but finally answered. "Six years ago – well, closer to seven now. A summer night in London. I was there to arrest him. It. . . didn't happen."

"A number of other things did, I gather. To judge from the presence of young David."

Emma couldn't exactly deny that, but she still wanted to stuff a sock (or a fist) in his mouth. "Never mind that. He. . . disappeared. I don't know how. He's never been seen again. After that, I went to visit someone, and they told me that the curse, that everything, who he is. . . it's real."

"Ah." Gold's expression changed. "So you do believe."

"I wouldn't say that. I can understand it. On an intellectual level. Barely. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, and maybe there's something, someone out there that wants to screw up people's lives, but just this idea that it's a _curse. . ._ I don't know if I can go there or not. Magical woo-woo reason for explaining why stuff sucks. _It's not me, it's this curse_. I've had to fight my entire life. I don't have a lot of time for people with self-pitying excuses. Especially shitty ones."

"Oh, it wasn't always like that."

"Emma Nolan." She had the satisfaction of seeing him look shocked. "Yeah, I know about that part. That I used to be her, and I somehow forgot my old life completely. That I'm not coming here for the first time. Just coming home."

"Ah," Gold said again, thoughtfully. "Are you?"

"I don't know." She spoke through clenched teeth, hating how much of herself she'd already had to reveal to him, trusting him not a whit, but knowing that finding out the truth of anything depended on her holding up her end of the honesty bargain. "I don't want to believe it. You knew about Mary Margaret. That she lived in that building."

"Knew what about her, dearie?"

"That she's supposed to be my. . . mom." The word felt strangled, burning in Emma's chest. "But if I actually let myself think that was true. . ."

"You'd start wanting it," Gold completed. "Wanting it too much. And then you'd be able to lose her, you'd make yourself weak, and then you wouldn't know how to live if it happened."

Emma was badly rocked at such an accurate emotional sketch of the situation, and she reacted instinctively, defensively, lashing out. "The hell would you know about that?"

Something happened to his face, then. That strange, gleeful, demented expression that she'd glimpsed only briefly when Greg and Tamara had broken into his shop, just as quick as a snake flicking its head out, knowing that she really didn't want to see any more, knowing that he was a very dangerous man. "You _were_ listening to what I said earlier? About missing my boy? I know as much as anyone about the pain of losing your family."

"And yet you won't tell me how to find mine."

"Had you asked? I don't recall. And nobody told me either, dearie, so there's something else we have to suffer with." Gold gazed down at the sword again. "Nobody remembers," he said, half to himself. "Only me. So then, Miss Swan. What do you want?"

"I want you to leave my son alone."

"Something that would have been much easier if you'd never come to Storybrooke. What do you want _here?"_

She stopped again. What she truly wanted, she didn't know if she could ever tell him. "There's something wrong here," she said at last. "Maybe it's a curse, maybe it's not. But for a long time, I've somehow been tangled up with this place. Maybe I just need to finally get it out of my hair."

"Interesting choice of metaphor." Gold placed the sword back in its case and latched it. "Who's Henry?"

The answer she'd given Regina – _David's imaginary friend –_ sprang automatically to her lips. "Why do I have to tell you that?"

"Why, indeed." He gazed placidly at the ceiling. "Do you want another answer out of me, or not?"

 _Fucking blackmailer._ "Okay. Fine. He's. . . he's not real. He could have been, but he's not. That doesn't mean, however, that he doesn't exist. It's complicated. Basically, in my sophomore year of college, I thought I was pregnant, but I wasn't. Henry is. . . my son who could have been."

"Henry," Gold mused. "It's been quite some time since I heard that name. Belonged to a man I didn't much care for. And yet you speak as if you've met this phantom child."

"Again. Complicated."

"Apparently so. Yet whatever you deem worthy of that word, Miss Swan, is quite far from what I do. I appreciate your good intentions not to burden me with too many distressing details, but I would rather prefer them. It has something to do with Neverland, doesn't it."

Her head snapped up. "How the hell did you – "

"Please. You come in here and threaten me and act as if you are quite familiar with who I am, with what this is, and what I understand about you and your life as a whole, but you are a complete and utter novice. The boy's alive somehow in Neverland, but not here, because you lost him. Yes, that would make sense. Is the pirate this one's father too?"

Emma shook her head stiffly, cheeks blazing.

"I suppose I should be grateful for that at least," Gold mused. "But now he's coming to David in dreams, trying to goad him into goading you into breaking the curse. Yes, yes. I see."

"You see _what,_ Mr. Crystal Ball?" Had he known this too? Or had David told him, bribed by chocolate ice cream? God _damn,_ she was going to kill that kid!

"Oh, I've never used crystal balls. Obnoxious and imperfect things. But the curse is what's keeping Henry from finding you again – from finding this town – and naturally, he does want to. I am none so sure, however, that you should let him. If I know anything about Neverland, and the sort of creatures who exist there, it's opening the door to a darkness that could destroy us all."

Emma stared at him. "So – what – you mean I _shouldn't_ – theoretically speaking about my ability to do such a thing – break the curse?"

"Did I say that?"

"Sure sounded like it."

"Subtlety. An art wasted on the young." Gold sighed. "What if I told you that if you did me a favor, I might be able to find a way to get you to Neverland, to deal with Henry and. . . anyone else you met there? Once that was done, you _could_ just break the curse."

 _What?_ Emma's breath felt too short, stabbing under her ribs. She remembered her belief that the shadow had taken Killian to Neverland – but it wasn't exactly a place where you could hop on an airline's website and book a discount weekend ticket. She'd come to the conclusion that for all intents and purposes, to be in Neverland meant that you were dead. It was completely unreachable, a place where those who didn't live here still lingered on, a land of the lost, of dream and memory and grief. The times she had woken up alone in the night, the times she'd felt her heart, her soul, her entire existence turn raw with her need to see the son of a bitch just once more. Like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, the wind over the water, all the thousands upon thousands of seconds, minutes, hours, _years_ that had gone by without him. Her hopeless hope. What she'd done, trying to retrieve even a moment of him. Having his baby. Coming here. As if she could hold up a shadow of herself and see the place it had been stabbed in the heart, marking when time stopped. When he'd left her. When he'd gone. When he'd been stolen.

Voice barely a whisper, she said, "What makes you think I owe you a favor?"

"What makes you think I'm under any obligation to leave your son alone?" Gold shrugged. "You can surely understand that I'm not in a great hurry to do any favors for the spawn of the wretched bastard who stole my wife and shot my love. Ice cream notwithstanding."

Emma wanted to scream at him for threatening David, but all that came out was a terse grunt. _I forgot about Belle._ And his wife. . ."Milah." Yes, this all made sense. "Killian _loved_ her."

"Is that what he told you?"

"Nobody spends three hundred years – yes, he told me that too – trying to get revenge for the sake of somebody they hated, or even were mildly indifferent to. And your wife wasn't a piece of property. Killian couldn't steal her. If she left you, you deserved it."

Gold stared at her, then smiled. There wasn't anything the least friendly about it. "My, my. I feel my willingness to be cooperative suddenly declining. Just as if our dear friend – you refer to him so familiarly, but I cannot stomach doing the same – Mr. Jones left you, then _you_ deserved it?"

Emma flinched. "Shut up." That had been cruel, she knew, and she also knew that she'd made a considerable mistake going after him like that, but just being able to talk about Killian for the first time in years, even with somebody who hated his guts – it had made her too fragile, put her too far on edge. "It's different."

"Clearly. To judge by the depths of hopeless infatuation you still cherish for him, it must be _quite_ different. If you will permit me to offer a bit of friendly advice, Miss Swan, be careful. You've come to a dangerous place, and you won't be able to work your way out of it by bluffing and snapping and posturing and pretending to be strong. After all, I know your weak spots." He grinned again, showing his teeth, and giggled. It was high, eerie, unsettling. "Dearie."

"Yeah. Thanks for your help," Emma said tightly. She'd achieved less than fucking nothing, apparently. "Good night."

She turned her back on him, determined not to let him have the last word, and marched across the floor, to the pawnshop's front door. She pulled it open and –

"Oh – I'm sorry! I didn't – "

Grimacing from where she'd collided with the woman entering from the other side, Emma took a step back, then felt her heart sink. "Regina. Strange time to come shopping."

"I had something to ask Gold." The mayor gave her a tight, plastic smile. "I see you're still running around without your son. Who's looking after him?"

"It's none of your business, but my neighbor."

"Neighbor." Regina clearly didn't like the sound of that. "The schoolteacher?"

"I assume there are several. You'll have to specify."

Regina ignored that. Her dark eyes flicked challengingly to Gold, who executed the masterpiece of a dismissive shrug. Then, clearly trying to be charming, she smiled. "Forgive me. I'm forgetting my manners. But you don't want to be dealing with him."

"I _am_ standing right here, you know," the pawnbroker commented. "I can hear every word you're saying, dearie."

Regina shot him another venomous look. Then to Emma, she said, "He's a liar. He's known for it. Whatever he's told you about any so-called curse, it's a complete fraud."

"Funny how you assume we were talking about that."

"I know the way he thinks." The mayor shrugged. "And he's dangerous. I don't need to tell you that, I'm sure. I'd take your son and leave this place for good, while you still can. Before things have to get. . . unfortunate."

"I don't think so." Emma gripped the doorframe tightly. "And if that's a threat, I'm going to have to take it up with my new boss at the station."

Regina laughed out loud. "You think you're going to report me to _Graham?_ Oh yes. Do."

 _What the hell is that supposed to mean?_ As Emma thought of Graham's psychotic behavior, of Regina's odd reaction to hearing David mention the curse, her rush to jump to conclusions about what she'd been talking with Gold about, her eagerness to bundle Emma out of town as soon as possible. . .

Maybe Gold, as much as she really didn't like him, was right. Maybe they needed to work together. Because this curse was keeping her, either way, from her family. From people she cared about. And, she was willing to bet a million bucks, Regina had something to do with it. Had _everything_ to do with it, in fact. And Emma Swan, if she was now in for the fight of her life, wasn't going to back down now.

Maybe she did owe Gold a favor.

Maybe they needed to find a way to Neverland.

* * *

_**The Enchanted Forest** _

"Hook," the witch said again, making the name half a curse, as it had been on the lips of so many others through the centuries. "What a. . . surprise to see you here."

"I was thinking quite the same."

"Really?" Cora's eyebrow arched. "Oh, I suppose you were. How have these years been for you, Captain? After you terminated our partnership?"

"Is that what you call it? Partnership? When you had your hand around my heart and would have crushed it to dust? I did my part. I got you to Regina's castle. You said you couldn't control me, that she'd know. Well, pet. Pirate is as pirate does. I'm indebted to you for informing me about the effects of the curse, but I had another way to elude it. I didn't need you."

"Oh," Cora breathed. "You did? Do tell."

Hook hesitated. That had been a mistake. He should have expected that she'd hold a grudge – you didn't become a sorceress of this stature and sinister by forgiving your enemies. But he did not feel of a temperament to inform her that when he'd sold Bae out to the Lost Ones, he'd leveraged a favor in return. He had known how to barter with the shadow. _The other one, at least._ _Not Henry._ In exchange for him giving up the boy, he'd managed to secure – along with a promise to leave himself, his ship, and crew unmolested – a certain item that would allow him, if he was ever in distress in some far distant corner of some far distant realm, to travel back to Neverland. It was only good once, and truth be told, he wasn't altogether sure that it wasn't a trick, that it wouldn't do something far worse – put him in the shadow's power, gods knew. But after he'd returned from Wonderland, he had decided that if there was ever a time to take a chance, now was it. He could be swept up by the Dark Curse and lose his memory altogether, he could wait twenty-eight years, frozen under the thumb of a terrifying witch who was no friend to him. . . or he could try to get away. So he had. After delivering Cora to Regina, he'd ducked out, jumped aboard his _Roger,_ and escaped the Forest just ahead of the curse. It was on arriving in Neverland that he had made that deal with the fairies. _They took my ship, returned my hand, and sent me to London._ He had never seen reason to regret the bargain, but coming back here like this. . . well, they did always say that karma was a cruel mistress. _And Cora is even worse._

Unnervingly, she appeared to be following his thoughts. "How _were_ those years in the land without magic, after you backstabbed me?" she inquired, with poisonous sweetness. "They clearly didn't make much of an impression, considering what I see before me. You haven't changed at all, Captain. And so, I know you'll agree to help me."

"Will I?" That rocked him, more than he wanted to admit. _You haven't changed at all._ Here he was, pirate and blackguard and rogue, complete with the hook and the rotted soul and. . . _No._ He remembered, faintly, wanting to change. To be different. To get back to Emma. "Against this lot? You haven't just ripped all their hearts out yet?"

"Don't you think that I would if I could?" Cora snorted. "They know what they're doing. Look." She held up her wrist, showing a black leather cuff clamped down on it. "This makes it impossible for me to use my magic – and, therefore, impossible to retrieve the compass. They fear me too much to take it off, even for an instant."

"Not surprising. You're a fearsome woman."

As he had hoped, that made her smile – not in anger, but in prim, pleased smugness. _Good._ So he hadn't forgotten everything about how to manipulate her after all. "So," he drawled, after a quick look over his shoulder to check that the coast was still clear. Wouldn't do for those Home Office types to barge in here now and overhear this. "As you'll have gathered, I've been absent for some time. Who _are_ the charming lunatics they've got running the asylum?"

"Oh, of course. You don't know." Cora made a show of looking surprised. "They're nothing to trifle with, Hook. They recruit local agents in every world they take over, instead of doing it openly, and that's why they're so dangerous. You don't suppose it was difficult for them to convince Mordred that they could be all sorts of helpful with his grievances?"

 _Mordred?_ Another unpleasant surprise. Hook had heard of the bugger, of course, but thinking of the slim, dark, sneering young man who had met him out in the great hall of the castle. . . Camelot had been in considerable turmoil when he was last in the Forest, what with Lancelot's scandal and exile, but everyone had thought Mordred's part in the disturbances of the kingdom more or less concluded. _Unless he was lying low. Awaiting the opportune moment._ "So he's back to attempt to overthrow Arthur again, I imagine? How many times will that be now, six? Seven? More? Someone should give the poor boy a gold star for trying, at least."

"You're missing the point. Now that he's working for Home Office, he has an entire shadowy and _very_ powerful organization behind him, and Arthur will only be the first of many to fall. You may think I'm a horrible person, though anyone with your reputation should be careful of pointing fingers. But unless you take a hand – oh dear, how terrible of me – to help stop it, they'll destroy us all."

"I am quite amused that you seem to think I'm a hero, love."

"Oh no. I don't think that at all. I think you're a small-time, self-interested, scabrous little villain with far more passion than sense, a complete lack of scruples, and – despite his proclamations of not fearing death – an extremely abiding desire to save his own skin." Her smile this time was predatory. "Now, are you going to work with me so we can get the compass and escape, or are you not? You don't want me as your enemy, I promise, and there is so much we could do for each other."

A pause. Heavy, pungent. In his head, he could see Emma's face. Hear her screaming his name, his real name, as she pounded on the door of his hotel room, as he was locked in battle with the shadow: _Killian! Killian!_ It seemed almost strange to even think it, now, and it made him realize that despite everything, he was forgetting after all. Sinking back into Hook like a soft black blanket, comforting in its rage and darkness. Slowly and steadily, a trickle of sand in a glass, that other self, that better self, was slipping away from him, and if it went again, it would be for good. And at last, after three hundred years and more, after three different worlds, after death and revenge, after love, after Emma Swan, he did not have time.

He glanced back to Cora. Then he cracked a smile that was just as mirthless.

"Indeed, love," he said. "I may have a few ideas."


	29. Chapter 29

Over the next several weeks, Emma avoided doing anything whatsoever out of the ordinary. Partly to give suspicions time to die down, partly to give both Regina and Gold a wide berth, and partly to devote her attention to helping David settle into his new life. For that matter, she too had to learn the ropes of a new town and a new job for the first time in years. Graham was fairly lenient about her scheduling at the station, as this place wasn't exactly _CSI: Miami_ in its crime problem, and he'd promised she wouldn't have to work nights, which was a signal improvement over being out late all the time as a bounty hunter. The downside was that she now had time to actually be domestic, which was terrifying. There were definitely not going to be any frilly aprons and _Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking_ dinners, but it didn't seem out of line for her to expect herself to pick up the place, pack David's lunch, and, if she could, make him a snack and help him with his homework in the afternoon, then tuck him into bed at night. Ordinary mom stuff, maybe, but it had mostly been the neighbor's job in Boston, not hers.

David, for his part, appeared to require far less adjustment than she did, in the agreeably malleable way of young kids. There was one day when he came home crying because he missed his Little League teammates and neighborhood buddies, but other than that, he took to Storybrooke as if he'd lived there all his life. He liked to introduce himself to everyone he met, and proceed to charm the socks off them – kindly old Marco, the woodworker, fun flirty Ruby, the waitress at the diner, and man-about-town Sidney, the local reporter. Emma watched them all carefully, to see if they were accidentally going to say something about the curse. But no one seemed aware of it. She didn't even know _how_ they were supposed to be cursed. They just looked like ordinary working-class people, in an ordinary small New England town.

Emma wondered how she could gather further intelligence on the situation, without directly consulting Gold again. His offer was in her back pocket, but if she kept working with him, she was going to have to pay a stiff commission in far more than just money. She had to admit that he had behaved impeccably ever since their conversation, always wishing her good day whenever they saw each other, and likewise seemed to be operating under the expectation that she'd be back to do business whenever her temper cooled down. _If you did me a favor. . ._

Regina was a different story. After trying to get her lease terminated for some minor procedural detail (which Emma found out about from Gold, who clearly thought he was doing her a favor by informing her) and then trying to restructure the city budget to cut the funding for the sheriff's office and hence its ability to support a deputy (which Emma found out about from Graham, who was furious) and _then_ trying to claim that David was ineligible to attend school in the district due to the unresolved situation in Boston (which Emma found out about herself, when she was called out of work over to Storybrooke Elementary) she had finally conceded defeat and changed tacks. Now she was launching a full-bore charm offensive, mainly directed at David. Barely a day went by without her offering to watch him, bringing cookies, asking if he wanted to come play at her house with his friends, and otherwise feeding his six-year-old ego. David, of course, saw no problem with any of this, and if Emma tried to step in and cut off the gravy train, she was the one who looked like the bad guy. It didn't take long for frustrations to reach boiling point.

"She is driving me fucking _crazy!"_ Emma flicked open Graham's box of darts and nailed a bulls-eye through the deer's butt, which for some weird reason constituted the target he'd posted on the sheriff's station wall. "What _is_ her deal? Can't she just, I don't know, adopt an orphan and satisfy her weird passive-aggressive clingy psycho mothering urge? Why the hell is she trying to steal my son? Is it just because she's made clear how much she hates me? How does that even _work?"_

"Regina's. . . complicated." Graham, trucked up at his own desk with a to-go cup of black coffee from Granny's and a gooey fresh bearclaw vanishing rapidly into his ginger-scruffed face, observed her deadly accurate dart-flinging with admiration. "I'm sure she doesn't mean any harm. Maybe you can have a chat with her though, see if you can talk some sense?"

"Sense and Regina do not live in the same zip code. They haven't even chatted at a cocktail party. I'm also not entirely sure that she's, you know, stable. There was a little scene a couple weeks ago, when she more or less told me that if I didn't leave town, things were going to get unfortunate. I'm not a lawyer, but I've spent a lot of time working in the criminal justice system. I'm pretty sure that counts as a court-admissible threat."

Graham looked startled. "What? No!" He shoved back from his desk, unloosing a raft of fugitive papers; the guy had to be single, because this place was pretty much used as his bachelor pad. "I promise you, Emma. I won't let her or anyone hurt you."

"Wait, what?" That was a little weird. Emma coiled her legs under her, ready to make a break for it if he started wigging out again. "Does that mean that you think she might try?"

"No! Of course not! I just. . . I just. . ." Graham rumpled his hand through his hair, in that oddly adorable habit he had when flustered, and looked in all directions as if his head was on a pivot. Notably excepted was the one of her face, but she could see his cheeks turning dull red. "I just meant. . . I just. . ."

"I can handle myself. You don't need to look out for me."

"It's. . . it's my job, hey?" He tried a weak little smile. "Sheriff? Have to look out for all the inhabitants of Storybrooke, even the stubborn and beautiful blonde ones."

Emma's jaw dropped. "Are you _flirting_ with me?"

"I am not! . . . Oh God." Graham covered his face. "That was all wrong. I don't even know why I said it. It just. . . came out. Please, please forget it."

Emma was tempted to needle him just a bit more, but the color of his face now approximated a fire engine, and she was afraid he might actually explode if she took it too far. Funny, for a handsome guy like him, he was as awkward around women as a pimply, knock-kneed nerd trying to work up the nerve to speak to his first crush. "It's all right," she told him, still repressing the urge to laugh at the stricken look on his face. "Just as long as this isn't going to get weird. We have a professional relationship to maintain, you know."

"I know." Graham looked abjectly relieved. "I just have one other question. It's actually going to sound _less_ awkward now, well done Humbert. Have you ever. . . seen a wolf around here?"

"A wolf?" Emma frowned. "Like, large furry howls at the moon thing? That sounds like something for animal control, not – "

"Yes, that kind of wolf, but. . ." Graham flapped his hand in futile search of a better description. "It's just. . . I'm seeing one around more and more often, since you came here, and I'm starting to think it means something. That it's mine, that. . ." At the uncomprehending look on her face, he trailed off. "I am so sorry. You can call for the friendly lads in white coats now."

"It's all right," Emma said again. What she was thinking about, however, was something quite different. _Once Upon a Time,_ August Booth's fantasy novel, where the heroine, Anna, was the long-lost daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. When she'd confronted him in jail, he had openly admitted that he had written the book so that she would read it and be stunned by the similarities. Anna went to Storybrooke, where everyone was a cursed fairytale character who had forgotten their true lives back in the Enchanted Forest, ripped up and swept here by a dark curse cast by the Evil Queen. Where she had to break the curse, help them remember, and. . .

 _Okay,_ Emma told herself. _This is getting out of hand._ Regina might be a pain in the ass, but the sensible thing to do was to assume that the woman had serious emotional issues and needed to be put on strong medication, not that she was a tyrannical, magical monarch from an alternate universe. But it _was_ one possible permutation of the curse she kept hearing so damn much about, and if she was organizing a plan of action that included a possible trip to fucking Neverland, she couldn't cast it aside immediately. Yet if they had forgotten, if they had all apparently forgotten very well, why on earth would Graham be starting to remember? Remember _what?_ That in a previous life he was the Wolfman? He could have gotten a crank "discover your past self!" hypnotist to tell him that he was, hell, William Shakespeare for a lot less stress.

"I'm sure it's nothing," she said, seeing that Graham was still looking at her in prompt expectation of his consignment to the funny farm. Glancing at the clock, she added, "Hey, I promised David I'd pick him up from school. We're going to go shopping for Thanksgiving. Time really flies, huh?"

"Thanksgiving? Right. Yeah." Graham shook his head. "That's this week, isn't it? Thursday? Very good. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Course," Emma promised him. She clocked out, pulled on her jacket, sunglasses, and scarf, and stepped out into the chilly, apple-crisp autumn afternoon. It was so picture-perfect that someone should have painted an oil portrait, and it briefly made her heart hurt, remembering cozy fall afternoons on campus, scuffling through red leaves while smoke curled gently from Gothic towers. _I had to leave BC. I had no choice._ That life, like so much, felt like a thousand years ago.

School was just letting out when she pulled up to the curb. Pigtailed little girls in plaid skirts and shrieking little boys in blue blazers were scattering everywhere like a bomb had blown up an anthill – David had initially been rather taken aback to discover that he was expected to wear a uniform, and compensated by getting it as dirty as humanely possible, until Emma warned him that he was going to learn to wash it himself if he kept this up. This had effected an improvement in his cleanliness, if not his decorum, and she leaned on the wheel of the Bug, looking for him among the chattering crowd. But something else caught her eye instead. Around the corner of the old brick edifice, on the opposite side of the playground, were two figures she recognized.

A slow heat rose up Emma's cheeks. She couldn't claim definitively that anything _wrong_ was going on, per se, but something – call it her spidey senses – were tingling. Mary Margaret Blanchard, recognizable even at this distance by her short black pixie cut and demurely buttoned cardigan, was laughing at something David Nolan had said, his hand resting casually on the wall behind her head and his gaze fixed on her with something very much like tender devotion. And unless something had changed in the past few weeks – which Emma doubted, considering that this was a small town and news traveled fast – he was still very married. To Kathryn.

 _What the heck? She told me there wasn't anything going on with him!_ Perhaps it was absurd to feel betrayed, considering, but Emma was still disposed to be somewhat miffed. But it wasn't just that which had taken hold of her as she watched them, like a Peeping Tom in the bushes, some grubby little voyeur. If everything she had heard or been asked to believe was true, those were her parents. Who had no idea that they were her parents, were seeing other people, weren't much older than her, and – the big kicker – might actually be classic storybook characters exiled from their own world and dependent on her to save them. _Snow White and Prince Charming._ It almost felt like open mockery. To look for her family, and find this, to find. . .

" _Honey?" The nurse again. Why the hell wouldn't they just leave her alone? "I've got the birth certificate here. Have you picked out a name for your son?"_

_Floating. Far away. Things didn't hurt as bad after the epidural. Sweaty hair on the paper pillow, the crumpled hospital gown, still breathing heavily, exhausted, smelling blood and medicine and chemicals. Somehow, she'd never thought of this at all. Just assumed that the baby would be born and be whatever it was, however it was, with minimal input from her. She had never even imagined picking out her child's name, much less anything else about him, and yet, only one came to mind._

" _David," she croaked. "His name's David."_

" _That's a good classic name. Never goes out of style."_

" _Yeah. My dad's." The lie slipped from her lips so easily, and yet she never asked herself why._

" _That's very sweet." The nurse scribbled. "Middle name? Last name? Are you going with the father's or is it going to be yours?"_

_A well-meant question, asked professionally – she worked at the hospital, they were already well aware that Dad wasn't in the picture – and yet it made Emma feel almost violated. For a moment, she did want to give her newborn son his father's name, seeing as it was the only thing he'd ever have of him. But why? This was her kid, and hers alone. She was the one who'd borne it from start to finish. On the vanishingly impossible chance that she ever saw Killian again, he wasn't entitled to a damn thing from either of them. He would probably never even know that he had a child. David was hers, and why screw up their lives with two last names?_

" _Swan," she mumbled. "David Eric Swan."_

_She'd never known either where Eric came from, just that it occurred to her. Just that it seemed right. She was past asking questions by that point. She only wanted to sleep._

"Mom?"

Startled out of her reverie, Emma jerked upright so quickly that she nearly banged her head. David himself, backpack slung on his shoulder, had opened the passenger door and was eyeing her in puzzlement. "You had a funny look on your face."

"It's nothing." Emma forced herself to sound bright, enthusiastic. "Ready to go Thanksgiving shopping?"

David rolled his shoulders. "I guess."

This was so unlike her normally bombproof, happy-go-lucky little man – he'd been telling her for the last three days not to forget – that Emma frowned. "Hey. Something wrong?"

"Nope." He stared at his shoes.

"Come on, buddy. One of the reasons I agreed to move here was so I could have more time with you. Talk to me?"

"I. . ." He glanced up furtively, like a hunted animal. "My dad. He was a bad guy, wasn't he?"

 _Oh, Jesus._ "What?"

"I just. . ." David twiddled the strap of his backpack. "Some kids today were teasing me. They told me that he was no good and that he drowned in the river back in Boston and you weren't sad because you didn't even like him. Is it true? He's dead and you're happy?"

"I. . ." Emma felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. As sickening as it was, she had to admire it; no matter how skillfully it had been set up to appear as to originate from schoolyard bullies, there was only one person in Storybrooke that she'd told that story – that lie – to. And he, knowing full well that it was a lie, had gone ahead and arranged for her son to hear it. "David. Sweetie. Back then, things were. . . very complicated in my life, and – "

"Is he dead?" Tears were shining in David's big blue eyes. "Just tell me, is he dead?"

"I. . . I don't know. He disappeared before you were born."

"But then why did the meanies think he drowned?"

"They've. . . probably been listening to the wrong people." Emma's stomach felt tight, clenched. She was fighting a very real urge to forget the groceries, drive straight to the pawn shop, and punch Gold in the face. "David, with adults. . . again, it's grown-up stuff. It's messy. Believe me, I wasn't happy when your dad disappeared. I still miss him. Every day."

David relented somewhat. "What was his name?"

She hesitated. The kid was already a wicked good Googler, and she didn't want him finding out this way. "Colin," she lied. It sounded enough like Killian; maybe later, if he found out, he'd just think he misheard. "His name was Colin. Now come on. Let's go shopping."

* * *

A few hours, several large grocery bags, one mostly mollified kid, and a favor asked of Mary Margaret later, Emma was storming into Mr. Gold, Pawnbroker's like Medusa unleashed.

"Happy holidays to you too, Miss Swan." He held up a delicate glass piece to the light, squinting through it as he fitted it to a mobile. "Next time, don't break my door handle."

"Shut up. You fucking _bastard."_

"Oh ho. Most unladylike language to boot." Nonetheless, appearing to sense that the situation had to be taken seriously, he put down his monocle and turned around. "May I have the pleasure of enquiring why I am either fucking or a bastard, as I have no recollection of either?"

"You know exactly why. How dare you use _kids_ to make my son feel bad?"

"Oh, that?" Gold wiped his hands. "Schoolchildren gossip. Schoolchildren bully each other. I fail utterly to see how I can be held in any way accountable."

"You're the only person they could have heard it from."

"And yet, the person _I_ first heard it from was you. Lies take on a strange life of their own, don't they, Miss Swan? And whatever your lad heard, it's doubtless far preferable to the truth. I was doing him a kindness."

"Like hell." Emma slammed both hands down on the counter, causing him to – if not quite flinch, at least look as if he was thinking about it. "Fine. I see you want to take this little game to the next level. What favor, and I use the word loosely, did you have in mind?"

"This unofficial one? Oh, that's a favor far more for you, dearie, than for me. You've been in Storybrooke almost a month now, and yet you've made scant effort either to take me up on my well-meant offer. Or to find out more information. Or even to do anything except feud tiresomely with Regina about your son and shout at me for passing on only what I've heard from you. Is this all a game to you, Miss Swan? Because for the rest of us, I assure you, it is not."

Emma squirmed. "I've been busy," she said lamely. "And trying to work things out on my own."

"On your own? The way you've always done things, you mean? Do let me know how that's going. Considering your track record, I'm sure it's marvelous." Gold's eyes glittered maliciously. "As an apology for attempting to assist you in finding your family – well, no, I'm not sure I wish to call it an apology after all, but rather a tip, shared in confidence between friends, or at least those with mutual enemies. Look in the library."

"The library?" Emma was confused. "It's boarded up. I didn't think anyone used it."

"And should that not make it a most suitable place for concealing something that Mayor Mills doesn't want found?"

Her pulse spiked. God knew that Regina could use being taken down a peg or ten, and she hoped she'd be the one to do it, but her old suspicious instincts sniffed a trap. "If you know so much about her dirty little secrets, why haven't you done something about this? Why can't _you_ go?"

"Me? With this?" Gold nodded toward his crippled foot. "Crawling around in dark spaces isn't something I'm cut out for, dearie. And besides, Regina has the place strung up so thoroughly that if I went, she'd know in minutes."

"Not to mention that the two of you run this town, and as much as you might hate each other, you still are careful about stepping on each other's toes." Emma glared at him. "You want me to do your grunt work, and you don't want to be caught with your fingers in the pie, just like you were a big man and got a bunch of schoolkids to do it with David. But it does appear that we're more on the same side than I am with Regina, and so I'm going to ask you a little question. Whatever you say, I better believe. Can I trust you?"

Gold grinned. "Of course you can't. I'm not a good man. But when it comes to this, you and I are indeed of the same mind. You'll have to go at night, otherwise you'd be noticed."

He started to turn away, then stopped. "Oh," he added, as if only just thinking of it. "And I wouldn't go alone."

* * *

Naturally, Emma's first impulse was to rush out and break into the library right then, but she at least recognized that this had to be planned for. There wasn't really any casual way to broach the subject at work the next morning, but she did her best. "So. . . Graham. Has anyone ever checked out the old library? How long has it been abandoned?"

"The library?" He blinked. "It's been like that for as long as I can remember."

"So much for that city budget, huh?" Emma snorted. "But I was just driving past it yesterday, and it looked like someone had been taking the boards off the windows. There could be squatters in there, or something. I think we should check it out."

It was clear that this dimension of urban policing had never even occurred to Graham. "Homeless people? No, I don't think so, we don't have much of a problem with those."

"Come on? Please?" Emma had to admit, she was laying it on thick – she didn't want to mix her signals, considering her well-established policy about dating and men and romance in general – but she was flashing a little bit of a pout and a whiny voice and fluttering eyelashes. "Just because you like me?"

He blinked. "I do like you. Ahem, you know. Professionally. But I fail to see how that – "

"You don't want me going by myself, do you? What if there's, like, a bat's nest in there?"

"Bats are very harmless creatures," Graham, ever the tree-hugger, insisted. "I don't think we can get a probable cause warrant to search the premises just because – "

"But the boards," Emma pressed. If he did go to look, he would in fact find several boards ripped off the windows. He just wouldn't know that she was the one who had done it. "And don't tell me it's against the law, because we are the law. I'm sure you can get a warrant if someone's going to ask for it, but why would you need one if you think it's abandoned?"

Graham looked trapped. "I just don't know if it's the best idea to go nosing around in there."

"Why?" Emma said, exasperated. "Because of Regina? Well, you know what? Fuck Regina. I'm not scared of her. What can she do to either of us? And unless she has pictures of you having sex with a goat or something, you don't need to be so far up her ass all the time. Seriously." She stepped forward and grasped him by the shoulders, almost shaking him. "Get with it."

Graham continued to look blindsided, but a corner of his mouth twitched. "No goat porn. Scouts' honor."

"Good. So let's get with the program. Tonight?"

He let out a long, gusty sigh. "All right. Tonight."

* * *

It was dark, cloudy, and cold, the scent of snow hanging pungently in the air, by the time they got off work. Emma called Mary Margaret to once again apologize for peddling David-watching duty off on her, and she and Graham grabbed service weapons, flashlights, tools, and heavy gloves, which she hoped would be sufficient for whatever they were about to encounter. Taking the police cruiser would be too conspicuous, and likewise everyone in town now knew that the yellow Bug belonged to her, so they walked the several blocks from the station to the library. As they reached it, boots crunching and breath huffing silver in the wintry November twilight, Emma noticed to her surprise that the clock in the tower had started to move again. She'd just figured it was broken like the rest of the place, since it had been stuck at 8:15 every time she'd been here, but if it had started to wind itself again. . . well, that was a little odd.

They waited until the street was quiet, people headed home or for a warm dinner at Granny's or a stiff drink at the White Rabbit, and then moved in. Graham swept his flashlight across the weathered exterior, duly discovering the ripped-off boards, and raised an eyebrow in a way that Emma took to mean he thought she might have a point. He peered through. "Hello?"

Not terribly surprisingly, there was no answer.

"Guess we're going in." Graham, the hastily procured warrant folded up in his brown bomber jacket pocket, eyed the locked door with professional acumen, removed a pair of bolt cutters, and snipped the chain. He pushed, and it groaned open into dusty dimness, smelling of paper and mildew and must. Another sweep of the flashlight revealed crowded, dingy bookshelves, an empty circulation desk, and a few broken carrels and chairs. He wrinkled his nose. "Charming."

"Yeah, really." Emma took a firmer grip on her own flashlight, which was stainless steel, of sizeable heft, and suitable to bonk on the head any deranged bibliomaniacs who might come rushing out of the darkness shrieking at them. When no such specter appeared, she shrugged and stepped inside, her flashlight casting slices of eerie shadow through the closed louvers. "You guys have a pretty nice little town here. How come the library's been abandoned all this time?"

"I. . . don't know." Graham frowned. "It doesn't make sense, does it? Well, come on. Let's have a look around."

An inspection of fifteen minutes, however, failed to yield any result. Emma got down on her hands and knees, feeling with gloved hands beneath the shelves, unable to stop herself from imagining a jumbo-sized rat lurking under there and waiting to take a nip. But even the vermin appeared to have deserted this place, and she had to fight the prevailing suspicion that Gold, yet again, had set her up. This would probably be front page of the _Storybrooke Mirror_ tomorrow, what with Sidney and his irritating penchant for exposé journalism – _Corruption In The Police Force!_ in three-inch type, accompanied by an article strongly intimating that their purposes in scoping out the empty library could only be nefarious. Either that or –

Graham, searching nearby, suddenly froze.

"What?" Emma whispered, voice sounding too loud. "What?"

He put a finger to his lips, signaling quiet. His head was cocked toward something that Emma had originally taken as part of the wall, but now looked more like an old-fashioned freight elevator. One person would have to crank it, while the other went down. Whatever he thought he'd heard, it had come from there, and this time, straining, she thought she heard it too. So faint she couldn't be sure, but it sounded like a shout. Or a bellow.

"I think. . . there's someone down there." Saying it gave her the chills. "One of us should. . ."

"I'll go," Graham said immediately. "I'm the sheriff."

"Yeah, but I'm the deputy sheriff. And just between the two of us, I really don't want to be caught in here, if somebody decides to take an interest in our handiwork."

"What if it's dangerous?"

"Hey, this morning you were the one telling me that bats were harmless creatures."

"That didn't sound like a bat." Graham set his jaw.

"Then I guess I was right about us needing to investigate the library, huh?" Emma put her hands on her hips. "Lower me down, and I'll do a quick recon. If it's dangerous, I promise, I'll jump right back in and get the hell out of Dodge, and we can go kill Gold together for thinking this was a good idea. If not – "

"Gold?" Graham was staring at her with an even stranger look on his face. " _Gold_ told you to go here?"

 _Fuck._ "He let something slip when he thought I wasn't listening," Emma lied. "Now come on. We're wasting time with chit-chat. This could be a serious situation."

Beaten, Graham threw up his hands with a muttered curse, then helped her wrench the elevator's doors open, shrieking with rust. Emma did have something of a qualm about stepping into the insubstantial-looking grilled cage, hand closed tight around her gun, feeling nervously at her waist to make sure her sheriff's badge was still there. Her heart was pounding fast and short as the door rattled closed and Graham began to crank, lowering her down into the darkness.

She tried to gauge how far it was, but it was impossible to see anything besides rough walls gritting past her. No light, no nothing. Her flashlight didn't pierce the murk, and when the cry came again, it scared her so much that she bit her tongue. Human-sounding. . . maybe. Were there feral cave people who'd been living down here for years, doing God knew what? If so, they were not about to be very impressed with her entrance, sheriff's badge or not. How many rounds did she have? Was it really a smart idea to be shooting at all when you couldn't see what the fuck you were shooting at? Oh God, talk about giving Sidney tabloid fodder, if she came out guns blazing and capped an innocent repairman in the ass or something –

The doors jerked open. Starting to wish that she'd let Graham go down after all, Emma stumbled out.

The blackness was absolute, and she shone her flashlight carefully on her feet to make sure she didn't perform an embarrassing facer. The ground was rough, stony and dangerous, dripping wet and uncomfortably breathing as if she was deep in a cave. Her senses were on red alert, the back of her neck prickling. There was some kind of strange animal scent down here, almost reptilian, and it made her sneeze. Jesus Christ, what –

" _Help? Help!"_

 _That_ was definitely a human voice, and it just about gave Emma a heart attack. Adrenaline overloading, she whirled on the spot, flashing her light in every direction, until she caught sight of a low, narrow passage leading off the main one, from which the shouts were still echoing. She snatched her badge off her belt, cocked her gun, and broke into a sprint. "Police! Police!"

She followed the echo through a narrow, labyrinthine jungle of speleothems, down toward the end. There was something here. A cell. She could see bars. And then, like something out of a nightmare or a really bad B-movie, the skeletal hands of the woman clutching them.

Tamara cringed, turning away from the glare of the flashlight. In the blur of movement, Emma caught sight of a second person huddled in the corner – this one, _no,_ yes, yes indeed, was her erstwhile downstairs neighbor, Greg Mendel. Both of them looked starved and filthy and freezing, so much so that despite the fact they'd once kidnapped her and taken her up here tied in the boot of their car, Emma's heart twinged with pity. Once they recognized that she wasn't whoever they'd been expecting, Tamara scrambled back. "Hello? Who's there? Help!"

Emma just stared, trying to wrap her mind around it. It was like one of those cases where the police found people who'd been missing for years, walled up in some psycho's house, but this time she _was_ the police and she had a horrible hunch that she knew the psycho too. She kept her voice level. "It's all right. This is the sheriff. I'm not going to hurt you."

Tamara, recognizing her, blanched. ". . . Emma? Emma _Swan?_ Oh my God. We are so sorry for everything earlier. I swear, it's a horrible mistake. We want to help you, we're on your side, I promise. Please just let us out of here. Please!"

Emma knelt cautiously by the bars. "How long have you been down here?"

"I don't know. We've lost track. After we were arrested during the break-in on Gold's shop. . . we've been prisoners ever since."

"Who put you here?" _Please say Regina. Please say Regina._

That, however, would have been too easy. Tamara shook her head. "We don't know. Someone brings us food and water every so often, but we never see their face. Just. . . please, _please_ get us out of here. There is, I swear, there's some kind of monster down here. We can hear it. I don't know what, but it's awful. We will do anything for you, _anything._ Please!"

Emma hesitated a moment longer, then made a decision. "Hang on, okay? I'll be right back."

With that, detaching Tamara's clutching fingers from her jacket sleeve, she struggled to her feet and navigated back into the main passage, reaching the winch cage in record time and banging on the bars. "HEY!" Her voice echoed uncomfortably into the darkness, making her think of that stench again, and what Tamara had said about monsters. _Knock it off, Swan. You've got a job to do._ "I NEED THE BOLT CUTTERS! WE'VE GOT PEOPLE DOWN HERE!"

She couldn't see Graham's reaction, of course, but after a moment, the elevator began to bang and rattle back up the shaft at double-quick time, which wasn't a whole lot more than single-quick time, but at least enabled her to tell that her partner was putting his back into it. He probably would have jumped in himself, but had to stay and crank, and before too long, she could see the shadowy shape of the cage descending again. She pulled the door open, extricated the requested implements, and dashed back down.

A few minutes of work later, hard enough to break a sweat even in the dark, close, cold air, she had the cell door open, and Tamara and Greg stumbled out. Their smell, at least, verified their story that they'd been down here for months or years; their clothes were ragged and filthy as apocalypse survivors, and Tamara had a bad ankle, fractured or broken. Emma draped her arm around the other woman's shoulders, and the three of them hopped, shuffled, and slid across the treacherous rocks in the direction of the elevator cage. She made Greg go in front of her, not wanting to have him unseen at her back just in case, and by the time they reached it, she was certain that she'd heard something stirring, nearby in the dark. Whatever it was, it was quite large, and – she told herself to stop being ridiculous, but couldn't help it – decidedly _not_ human.

"All right," Emma panted, winded from carrying Tamara. "Let's get going, people. I assume there aren't any fond goodbyes you want to say."

Both of them shook their heads, and she shooed them into the cage, then pulled it shut and shouted up to Graham. Their ascent this time was torturously slow, due to the added weight of two people, and at one point they stopped altogether, probably to allow Graham a breather. She had to resist the urge to shout at him to get moving again. Suspended in perfect darkness, with some kind of unknown _thing_ below, in a small cage with two people who had once kidnapped her and tried to ruin her life. . .

At last, as Emma's nerves were shredding, it started to move again, and they finally stumbled out onto the main floor of the library, Graham clearly shocked to see what her expeditions had unearthed. Outside, it had started to snow, and Tamara and Greg were clearly in no shape for walking to the hospital in the freezing cold. So, leaving them locked in the elevator as a precaution, Graham ducked out to fetch the cruiser, while Emma supervised the refugees.

"Thank you so much," Tamara said, shivering. "We'll never forget this. We promise."

Emma nodded tersely, not wanting to be drawn into conversation. She kept peering through the glass of the front door, watching for the returning cruiser. She was more on edge than she could remember being in a long while, and not just from her subterranean adventures. Something about this night just felt different. Strange. Wrong.

At last, the falling snow began to glow in headlights, and Graham stomped in, blowing on his hands, flakes melting in his curls. He and Emma got Tamara and Greg out and into the car, turning the heat on high, and he blared the siren and floored it through the empty streets to Storybrooke General Hospital. Emma made a call en route, and when they pulled up in the rotunda, a bevy of medical personnel were waiting to meet them, bundle the two freed prisoners into wheelchairs, and supply them with IV drips and heated blankets. Graham and Emma followed them in to start filling out paperwork, and had barely made a dent when a familiar voice rang through the foyer. "What is going _on_ here? There were _people discovered in the library basement?"_

Emma's head jerked up. "Madam Mayor. It's good to see you taking a civic interest on this cold and snowy night."

Regina ignored that, snapping shut her umbrella and dusting off her stylishly cut coat. Her face was bloodless, except for spots of hectic color burning high in her cheeks. "If this story is true, I need to get to the bottom of it immediately. Gold won't get away with this outrage. But you!" She wheeled on Graham, voice a low, venomous hiss. " _What the hell are you doing?"_

Graham paled, but stood his ground. "I'm doing my job. Protecting Storybrooke's citizens." He shot a loyal glance at Emma. "All of them."

Regina looked like she was about to blow a blood vessel. "You'll pay for this," she warned him, so softly that Emma knew she wasn't supposed to hear, then turned around and plastered on a bright smile for the approaching nurses. "Where are these patients? I need to see them, assure them in my official capacity that everything will be done to investigate this crime."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Mills." The nurse shrank. "I can't allow that."

"What do you mean, you can't _allow_ that? You know who I am!"

"Excuse me," Emma broke in. "Haven't you ever heard of patient privacy laws, lady? Those two have been through some pretty rough stuff, and frankly, if I was them, yours is the last face I'd want to see showing up in my room with promises to help. I'm all for investigating this crime, though. We might turn up some extremely interesting results."

Regina went white. She appeared, however, to have no immediate answer, and before she could recover, Emma turned pointedly to Graham. "Can you take it from here, Sheriff Humbert?"

He blinked, but caught on. "Yeah, I think I can, Deputy Swan. You've done great work, you'll be recognized by the department. How about you go home to your son and get some rest?"

"I think I will." Emma took a fiendish pleasure in the impotent fury on Regina's face.

"Take the cruiser," Graham urged. "It's a bit much to walk."

"No, I got it. I'll see you later. Happy Thanksgiving, Madam Mayor." With that, Emma put up her hood, pulled her scarf tight, and pivoted smartly on her heel, leaving both of them behind as she trotted across the sterile hospital linoleum and through the sliding glass doors into the night.

It _was_ snowing, thick and fast enough that she momentarily regretted turning down Graham's offer of the car. But the air felt bracingly clean in her lungs, flakes dancing like kisses on her face, and she felt downright pleased with herself as she began to trudge. Let's see how Regina got out of _this_ one. She probably had some contortionist act up her sleeve, but she couldn't have expected that this would happen now, if at all, and Emma was quite certain that she was the only person who could have done this. If Greg and Tamara held true to their word and started talking to detectives, this could be an open-and-shut case. Even –

She couldn't say what exactly it was. She was alone in the snowy night, in the deserted downtown, looking out between the buildings toward the harbor. It normally contained an assortment of rusty tugboats, brightly colored fishermen's tubs, a few catamarans and paddle boats rented out in summer, and a fleet of private sailboats that wouldn't have looked out of place on Cape Cod, and she thought that it was still the same, but something had caught her eye. Just for a second, silhouetted against the glow of the streetlamps and the bobbing light buoys, the fluorescent strobes of the cannery and the wharf walk. It had been there, veiled in snow and fog. Or else she was dreaming.

A ship. An honest-to-God ship. Old-fashioned. Two masts, furled sails, rigging, deck, cannons, anchor, lantern dangling from the spar, the whole nine yards. And an unmistakable flag crusted in ice, draped silently, spectrally, from the crow's nest.

A pirate ship.


	30. Chapter 30

Breaking worlds apart with his bare hands had been, thus far, much easier than expected.

Not, if you wanted to be a pedant about it, that it was precisely bare _hands._ After all, he had only one, though the hook was quite useful for breaking, entering, battering, stealing, skiving, and any other sort of havoc-causing activity he chose to put it to. But it was his tongue that had lately featured as the most dangerous part of him, after all the sweet-talking he had done to convince the Home Office to let Cora out of her cell and trot her up for an audience with Mordred. Hook himself didn't remember half the bill of goods he'd attempted to sell; most of it must have sounded like the outrageous lie that it was. Yet he finally achieved stirring success. Mordred grudgingly agreed to remove the cuff from Cora, under strict supervision of course, and permit her to use her magic long enough to speed Hook on his way up the beanstalk, on his all-important compass-retrieving mission.

That had been. . . quite something. He had not underestimated the prospect of filching a heavily guarded treasure from a badly tempered giant, but as his only option for a sidekick was Smee, he elected to go it alone, not trusting his weasely first mate at his back in a fight until he had a far better idea of just where the man's notoriously inchoate loyalties lay. Well. Not quite alone. Climbing up the tough, towering stalk that vanished into the clouds, as the ground grew smaller and smaller below, Hook was unable to think about anything but Emma. He could almost see her there with him, and reminded himself stubbornly that _she_ was what this was ultimately about. Once he had made up his mind that he wanted her, every option could and would be taken ruthless advantage of. He knew a thing or two about survival, guile, fighting, and fortitude. After this long, he should.

He felt more like Killian when he thought about her, and less like Hook. He wasn't sure, exactly, if he enjoyed it. Killian Jones was the man she had known – an urbane, polished history professor with a dark past, a sharp tongue, and a quick temper, but still not remotely a black-hearted, pilfering, infamous pirate bastard. Depending on what Emma had or had not worked out, or chose to believe, his reappearance in this alter ego was liable to come as rather a shock. But why let that stop him? This was also who he was, as much or more as that tweed-jacketed toff in Oxford, and she'd have to deal with it. She'd understand. Eventually.

Maybe.

If he wasn't just deluding himself that anything he had been to her, anything they had been to each other, counted at all. It had taken him time to fall for Milah; he had fully expected her to go the way of all the other women who periodically came aboard to service his crew, in exchange for a chance to see the world and a few silver pennies. But she'd made herself matter to him, made herself part of him, without him even noticing at first. Their love had been like nothing he'd imagined, their connection deep and true; gods knew that you didn't spend three hundred years trying to avenge someone you thought you could live without. But it had still been her initiative to come with him, her choice. He had merely been man enough to respect it.

It hadn't been like that with Emma. From the moment he saw her, even as a shy sophomore in his introductory history class, he'd been attracted to her. Yet it had been so uncomfortable, so strange after shutting himself down and isolating himself from all other women, that he'd gone completely the wrong way about it. It would have been best for him to have left her alone altogether, but that had never been a viable option. They had been too tangled in each other from the start, too sparked, drawn into each other, drowning. There had never been a moment of his life when he didn't know that he wanted Emma – Nolan or Swan or whoever she was – like he wanted to breathe, and that was terrifying.

Yet if there was one thing he did know, it was that that alone would not be enough. Anything they had truly shared was limited to that one night and day in London. Forty-eight hours of a fever dream, before he was snatched away by the shadow and it ended. He had no idea how many years it had been since, but it had to be a fair few. Time got away from you in Neverland. And if Emma didn't remember him, or didn't want him, or was horrified that he had emerged from the shadows of her past to confront her again, he was going to have to face it. He could fight for her from now until eternity (which was, considering his present lifespan, a very long time) but if she did not want him, he'd have to let her go. And he couldn't stand the thought.

It was a long climb to the top of the beanstalk, but a far shorter stay. There was a bit of a scrape with the giant, who was as pleased to have his castle invaded as one would expect, but nothing beyond Hook's capabilities. He knocked the bugger out, searched him, found the compass, and scarpered back down the beanstalk straightaway, along with as much treasure as he could carry (come now _,_ he _was_ a pirate). As he said. Easy. Easy enough, in fact, to pique his suspicion. He flattered himself that he was a professional of exceptional skill, but no matter how much the Home Office claimed to be afraid of Cora and her magic, if it truly _was_ this simple to nip up here and make off with the compass any time they liked, they surely wouldn't have needed him for the job. He'd expected the entire affair to be a setup from the start, of course, but it felt a bit too obvious, even for such mustachio-twirling, card-carrying villains as this lot appeared to be.

Thus, Hook occupied himself during the descent not with thoughts of Emma, but rather with concocting a plan to outwit his unwanted associates. He had already made up his mind that as soon as he had the magic bean in hand, he was going to jettison them as quickly as humanely possible. _Double-cross the double-crossers._ It was nothing they wouldn't do to him if they got the chance, and he wasn't at all interested in taking Cora _or_ the Home Office with him to Storybrooke, thanks very much. The trick was to schedule the betrayals so they didn't catch on at the same time, otherwise they might take it into their heads to join forces and hunt him down. But his burglarizing and backstabbing experience were nearly equal, and as the former had been nicely demonstrated, it was time to do the same for the latter.

This, at least, was the plan. Simple. Easy to remember. And then he reached the ground, and things began to get complicated.

* * *

"Such a timely return, Captain." It was raining, a gentle but relentless silvery mist that seemed to have been designed expressly for the purpose of allowing scheming witches with parasols to make atmospheric entrances. There was no telling how long Cora had been waiting at the foot of the beanstalk, if she had timed for his return or just fortuitously happened to drop in right as he did, but either way it was an unpleasant surprise. "You _do_ have the compass, I trust?"

Instead of answering, he smiled charmingly. "And what is a well-bred lady such as yourself doing out so far without her minders?"

Cora looked bored. "Those peasants? Please. As if they were any match for me, once you so eloquently persuaded them to take the cuff off? It _was_ one of my finer displays."

"I am quite sure. By the by, you _do_ look especially lovely tonight. And smell it as well. Is that a new perfume – eau d'evil? Exquisitely you."

"I suppose you think you're terribly clever? That pretty face does buy you a great deal, but it is a pity that the gods, having done _so_ well at creating a pinnacle of beauty, saw no reason to spoil the lot with brains. I understand you're a professor in the other world. Educational standards must be even more appalling than usual." She smiled sweetly. "Now. The compass?"

"Don't have it."

Cora's eyes narrowed. "You _what?"_

"Don't have it," he repeated. "Details of the affair are a bit of a bore. If I'd had someone to climb up there with, I could have pulled it off, but – "

"You were offered Smee."

"And you, my dear, have been offered a swift kick up the arse, but I don't see you taking it."

"I don't recall that I have."

"Oh. Well, consider me offering it by proxy, then."

"Are you out of your mind?" the witch demanded. "Standing here and japing at me like a circus monkey learning tricks? You're lying. Give me the compass."

"What compass? I told you, I don't – "

Cora raised a perfectly tweezed eyebrow. A burning sensation engulfed the inner pocket of Hook's long black leather jacket, and a brief puff of acrid-smelling smoke. She then held out an elegant gloved hand in demonstration.

"Ah," the pirate said. "That compass."

"Really, your mind-boggling incompetence is the one thing they leave out of all the stories. Though I understand. You have an ill-gotten reputation to maintain, and _the fumbling Captain Hook_ doesn't have quite the same ring, now does it? Now come along. It's long past time we got back. Some of us don't live forever."

"I have every confidence that you shall, darling."

"Oh, save it." The witch slipped the compass into her sleeve. "Shall we renew acquaintances or not?"

"I thought you said you'd already dealt with the Home Office?"

"I have. But we still do need the magic bean to open a portal. Oh, and by the way." Cora had started to glide away, but turned. "Who's the woman you're trying so hard to get back to?"

It wasn't the cold night that sent the chill down Killian's spine. _I didn't say a bloody word about that. How in hellfire does she know?_ "What woman?" he said, feigning amiable incomprehension, but showing his teeth in his smile. "The only one I cared about died three hundred years ago. Can't quite get her back now, can I?"

Cora scoffed. "Please," she said again. "I know you, Captain. The only reason you ever do anything is to martyr yourself past the point of sense for whichever woman you're irrationally devoted to. That, like all love, is a weakness, but you mustn't think that I disapprove. It _was_ time for you to forget Milah, after so long."

Hook's fist clenched. "I will _never_ forget Milah."

"Well, good. I _was_ starting to worry. You certainly haven't forgotten Rumplestiltskin, I trust?"

"Never."

"Then you are still resolved to kill him? If you truly loved Milah, you can never give up on revenge for her, not until the job is done. And it, I scarcely need to remind you, is not. Only then can you hope to go hat in hand to – what's this new one's name?"

"I haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about."

"Pity." Cora sighed. "But I suppose it's for the best this way. When I cross over to the other side, I'll know that there's no one I need to look out for. That the world is, in a word, fair game. Well then. It'll be the rest of the night back if you keep standing there. Come along."

* * *

It was not, in fact, the rest of the night. Cora's magic had them emerging from the woods surrounding the castle within an hour, and Hook gazed down to the dark harbor where his ship still rode at anchor. Cora instructed him to get aboard and start making preparations for departure; she herself had to fetch the bean. He refused to comply, however, until she returned the compass, as he trusted her not at all to have both the required items and not take advantage of it by leaving him behind. She agreed, far more graciously than he'd expected, and vanished.

Compass clutched tight in his good hand, the pirate went down to shore and made his way aboard the _Jolly Roger_. There wasn't much to do, and he was leaning insouciantly against the mast, tapping a booted foot, for the sole purpose of annoying Cora whenever she rematerialized, which she did in a puff of purple smoke about fifteen minutes later. She held up her hand to show off the glimmering clear bean that, despite himself, it gave him quite a turn to see. The last time he'd had one was when he and Milah had stolen it from her murdering arsewipe of a husband, and he'd sailed to Neverland. Seemed only fitting to be doing it in reverse this time.

"You got it. Excellent." He smiled and made a languid gesture, telling his girl that it was time, and the sails unfurled, the lanterns guttered to life, the knots tying themselves and the cannons rumbling out as the capstan began to creak, the skull and crossbones running up to the crow's nest. "Oh, and I should ask – you _did_ see to installing the enchanted timbers from the wardrobe? Smee promised they'd be here, and loathe as I am to take his word for anything, I must do so on this occasion. Otherwise this will be a very short trip indeed."

"Of course I did." Cora pointed to a patch on the deck where the old boards had been ripped out and the new, magical wood built in instead. "I don't suppose you know what use that wardrobe was originally intended for?

"Should I?" Hook said carelessly, moving take his place at the helm.

"Oh, I thought you might – this being Snow White and Prince Charming's old castle, after all. The wardrobe was intended to spirit their daughter away to another world before _my_ daughter's Dark Curse could catch her. There was a prophecy, you know. That she was the savior. And after twenty-eight years, she would break it." Cora shrugged. "But of course, she was swept through to this newly created Storybrooke with the others. Impossible to say what's going to happen now. What was her name – Anna? No, no. Ah. . . Emma. That was it. Emma."

Killian Jones remained as utterly stock still as if carven from stone.

"I don't suppose that name means anything to you?" Cora's eyes glittered.

He found his voice. It sounded hoarse. "Can't say that it does."

"Worth a try." She held out her hand. "Give me the compass. I'll navigate us through."

"Ah." He raised a dark eyebrow. "Funny you should say that, pet."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, well. . ." He shrugged. "When I left Neverland, I rather savagely betrayed the mermaids, and they didn't thank me for it. Doubtless they were hoping I would learn from my mistake, but I _am_ rather a slow learner. So. . ." He shrugged again, clicked his fingers, and watched as the ropes sprang up from the deck like possessed serpents, twisting around Cora from head to toe and suspending her in midair. "Oh, and my name is _not_ the 'fumbling' Captain Hook. Still 'fearsome.' Just so you know. So I wouldn't change any business cards quite yet."

"What is this – are you – " Cora struggled and clawed at the ropes, to no avail. Now that the _Jolly Roger_ was restored to full power, it had a few tricks up its sails, and when he was on it, he felt confident going head to head with anybody you cared to throw at him. "How _dare_ you – "

"The bean, love. Now." Hook held out his hand. "Or the next one goes around your throat."

"You'll regret this."

"Oh, I expect I will. I regret a great deal of things, and it has somehow not stopped me yet."

She looked livid, trying to wrestle her hand free to perform a curse. He'd like to see her try. The _Roger_ reacted quite adversely to incoming hostile magic – well, you didn't think he'd survived this long, making quite a few powerful enemies, _entirely_ with luck, charm, and dashing good looks, now did you? Nonetheless he directed the ropes tighter, still with a pleasant smile, until Cora growled through her teeth, gave a final abortive wriggle, and dropped the bean on the deck.

"Very good, pet." He picked it up, smirking, and dangled the compass from his hook. "Now, of course, you'll understand that this is a necessary parting. Don't wait up for me."

And with that, with another gesture, Cora was launched out into thin air as if blown from a cannon, blue dress flapping like a pennant as she soared most beautifully. Hook, however, didn't wait around to watch. He was already throwing the bean out to sea, cudgeling every drop of speed from the _Roger's_ magical timbers – not for nothing was it known as the fastest ship in this or any world – and steering toward yet another blazing emerald-green maelstrom. _One more rabbit hole._ Almost home. Almost there. Just him now. Just him.

 _I'm coming, Swan,_ he thought, half in anticipation and half in apprehension. Coming for her, and for Gold. To live with one and kill the other. Strange, but those were the cards that fate had dealt.

The _Roger_ reached the edge of the spinning green vortex, blasts of eerie light strafing the dark sky like a searchlight. He gritted his teeth, holding the wheel steady with the hook as they plunged over, sails and ropes and timbers screaming, and grasped the compass in his good hand, focusing on Storybrooke as hard as he could, painting the image in his mind, stark and clear as ice. He could see it. He was coming. Now. Now. _N –_

And then a wall of darkness came boiling up from the deep, howling like the tormented souls of drowned sailors as it slammed into them broadside, and he remembered nothing more.

* * *

As the pirate ship vanished down the portal in a blaze of roaring green light, Cora rolled over and brushed herself off, with a look of grim but gleeful satisfaction. She could already hear footsteps hurrying down the dock, and an anxious voice above her. "My lady, you're not hurt?"

"Not much." Cora reached up, took Mordred's offered hand, and allowed the young man to help her to her feet. "Were you watching? That was really one of my finer performances. You would actually think he'd gotten the better of me for once."

"Oh, I was watching." Mordred kept his hand beneath her elbow, steadying her. She didn't push him away, though she should have. She wasn't _quite_ as young as she used to be, and truth be told, she hadn't expected that bastard's trick with the ropes. "So he's gone then?"

"He's gone." Cora smiled. "It did work just as we planned, now didn't it? He thought I betrayed you, then he thought he betrayed me to get the bean, and now he's on his way to Storybrooke. It's so nice when people are predictable. Heavens knew _I_ was never planning to sail directly into the teeth of my daughter's Dark Curse. Hook can take the brunt of it for us, and then our way will be open to follow without any such inconvenient obstructions."

Mordred smiled. "I never doubted you for a moment, my lady. I am so sorry for that scene with the cell and the cuff, though I'm sure you understand the necessity."

"Don't be," Cora said breezily. "I played that quite well too. Oh, dear, you should have heard all the horrible things I said about Home Office. Hook was eating it up with a spoon. He's desperate, and it's making him careless. And even better, now I know why."

Mordred clearly knew that she was waiting for him to ask. "Which is?"

"This." Cora held up a vial containing a glowing-silver thread. "It was practically stinking on him. You see, after three hundred years, our dear Captain fancies himself in love again. Even better. With the savior."

"The. . . _savior?"_ Mordred's eyes widened. "Snow and Charming's daughter?"

"The very one. Emma. So you can see how advantageous this is for us, of course. He chose her, and my daughter's curse will soon be broken for good. The curse that is, so ironically, keeping Pan from finding Storybrooke. Pan, and everyone else. Their lives are surely quite awful now, poor dears, but end the curse, and the only protection they have is gone."

"Terrible," said Mordred, in a voice of utterly unconvincing sympathy. "Well, come on. He's here."

"They found him, did they?"

"Of course they did. Now that we have a plant in Earth law enforcement, it was simplicity itself. Agent George used to work on his case, so he helped us put the pieces together and send a hit squad through to retrieve him." Mordred was hurrying up toward the castle, and Cora trotted to keep up with him, as they passed through the great gates, the hall, and down the twisting steps into the dungeons, toward the cell where they'd pretended to imprison her to fool Hook. There was someone else inside it now: a man. Unremarkable. Brown-haired, scruffy, somewhat paunchy, dressed in strange clothes: jacket and odd blue trousers, scarf, shoes.

Mordred stopped short. "Ah. How rude of me to treat a guest this way."

"I tell you!" the prisoner shouted. "You've got the wrong guy! I don't know anything about this, about anything at all, just let me go and I'll forget I ever – "

"Please stop shouting," Mordred drawled. "It's not going to do you any good. And likewise, we mean you no harm. Considering your history, it must have been extremely traumatic to be snatched off the streets and dragged through a portal back here to the Enchanted Forest, but we aim to erase that injustice."

"You're crazy, you're all fuckin' nuts, just – "

"As we understand it," Mordred went on, completely ignoring him, "you had to flee your previous home of New York after some old crimes of yours came to light and a bounty hunter's warrant was put out on you. You don't want to be arrested, now do you? And we know who you are. We know what you want. You want to get rid of magic, you want to stop it from ever hurting people again. Well, my friend. So do we. You've fallen into exactly the right company. Help us. We want to destroy a curse, a terrible curse. A curse dreamed of, nurtured, created, and cast by none other than your own father."

There was a long, endless, hideous silence. Long enough for even the echoes to fade. Then, at last, the man lifted his head.

"All right," Neal Cassidy said roughly. "I'm listening."

* * *

The sound of dripping water finally woke Killian. He had been sprawled on the deck, dead to the world, chased through the dark and twisted precincts of his head by half-memories, half-nightmares, and faint, endless screaming. He was cold as utter blazes. Blood trickled from a gash on his temple, and when he rolled onto his back, his vision lurched and swam as sickeningly as if he was about to pass out again. He stared up through the rigging and the spectral sails – the _Roger_ was still in one piece, and, more or less, so was he. He barely remembered what he'd hit, but it must have been some effect of the curse, trying to blow him back or blow him apart, and he'd only just made it through. Even with the compass, he –

The compass. Killian sat bolt upright and stared around. His ship was bobbing at moor, among a thousand other ones, and snow was falling heavily out of a pitch-black sky, a low, murky fog making it impossible to see more than a few yards. But he could see enough, recognize enough. There was no harbor like this in the Enchanted Forest. He had made it to Storybrooke.

"Fuck me," he muttered, staggering to his feet. He had to grab onto a shroud to avoid falling flat again, and his legs felt like water as he made his way below, to his cabin. It crossed his mind to wonder if any of the citizens had noticed that a pirate ship had just appeared out of thin air in their peaceable New England enclave, but he remembered all the research he had done on curses similar to this one, back at Trinity when everyone thought he was working on his dissertation. They wouldn't be able to see it – not because it was invisible, per se, but because it was not part of their oblivious new identities. They could stand right there, but unless they believed, unless they knew, their cursed brains simply would not register a strange ship that had just jumped over from the very world they had been exiled from. He was safe. Enough.

Except for the crocodile.

" _Fuck me,"_ Hook muttered again, with far more vehemence. Everyone else in town might not notice it, but there was no doubt that Gold _would._ And thus, might come after him before he had time to lay his plans. He could not deny that there was a fizzing, nervous exhilaration in him, desperate to get this over with so he could leave to find Emma. He wanted it done, he wanted it settled, and impatience was going to make him sloppy. As far as he could tell, there was still no magic in this place. And thus. . .

He tried to sleep, it being dark as Cora's absent heart out there and thus buying him a few more hours of secrecy, but couldn't sink under. His head throbbed, his chest ached, and he was conscious of an utter, terrible longing gnawing out his bones. After so much trying and so much agony and so much betrayal, he had finally made it back to Earth. If he chose, he could sail the _Roger_ across the Atlantic, to London. Think up some explanation for his missing hand, and reappear as Professor Killian Jones. Go back to Oxford and the life that he had been so violently ripped from. Everybody would be delighted to welcome him back, not look at him askance and curse his name. He could still go. He could.

Hook groaned aloud and rolled onto his side, pulling the quilts up over his head. He had been alone so long now that it was almost second nature, but he was unable to stand it. _Emma._ He tried to picture her face, terrified that he would have forgotten it as he had Milah's, but it was clear enough to haunt him. _Where are you? Who are you now?_ Oh God, oh Christ, he'd left her. Failed her. Abandoned her. So easy to say that it was through no fault of his own, that he'd been abducted by the bloody shadow, but he refused to grant himself absolution so easily. And the things he'd done to make it back. . . the mermaids, Cora, Home Office. . . made so many enemies, as if he'd needed more, fallen down into the darkness where he forgot even the memory of light, the breath of life, the desire that had once burned in him to be a better man. . .

He tossed and turned restlessly until it began to get light. Then he rolled out of bed, crossed the cabin, and retrieved a particular vial. He stashed it in his jacket pocket, pulled down a cloak, and fastened it over his shoulders, tugging up the hood against the continued snow. Wood creaked as he descended the gangplank, jumping lightly down onto the dock. He couldn't help but suck in a few great deep gulps of the air, tainted with the reek of fuel oil, fisheries, and other grimy industrial smells that had been completely absent in Neverland and the Enchanted Forest. _Home._ Not here. This place could go down in flames once he was done with it, for all he cared. But he felt less than no desire to return to any of the magical realms. Earth was where he belonged.

Hook strode up the pier and into the deserted streets of Storybrooke. It was still very early and snowing like the dickens; shutters and blinds were closed, the drifts of white untouched by any foot except his. Good thing he had been here before, knew where he was going. Up and up. _Mr. Gold, Pawnbroker & Antiquities Dealer._

He reached the front door, considered it, and then delicately twisted his hook into the lock. After a moment, it clicked open, and he stepped inside. Now. This ended now. He –

"Can you read?" a voice enquired from the rear of the shop. Light and lazy, unconcerned. "The sign _did_ show 'Closed,' didn't it? Come back in an hour or two, dearie, and I'll be glad to – "

"Oh no." Hook threw down the hood of his cloak, scattering snow. "I don't think you will."

The pawnbroker's slight figure went utterly still. There were a few heartbeats where they both held in check, and then Gold revolved on the spot, eyes burning like supernovae in his deathly pale face. "Well, well," he breathed. "What a surprise."

"I'd hope so. One of my better ones, if you ask me." The pirate stalked forward, raising his hook. "Daresay you weren't expecting me, now weren't you? _Crocodile."_

Gold's eyes flicked to it. He appeared amused. "Going to stab me?"

"Truly, your keen intellect shames us all."

"Go ahead." Gold spread his arms. "And I'll remind you that only the Dark One's dagger can kill me, as you are very well aware. This clumsy half-arsed assassination attempt is pitiful even by your depressingly low stand – "

"You want to take that risk?" Hook breathed. "Maybe I can't kill you, no. But I've poisoned this with some of the _very_ special stuff from Neverland. You'll forget. _Everything."_

"Really?" Gold's knuckles went white on his cane. "I wouldn't advise that."

"Oh?" Hook snarled. "Give me one good reason. One good – "

And at that moment, as they stared each other down, as the silence crackled like a living thing, the bell on the pawn shop door jingled again.

Gold broke Hook's gaze and glanced over his shoulder. An extraordinary expression flashed in his eyes, one that the pirate did not like at all. He grinned. "David, lad," he said, cajoling, friendly. "Whatever are you doing here? Don't you have school?"

"It's Thanksgiving break," said a young boy's voice. "You're busy, I can go?"

"No, no, not at all." Gold's grin broadened. "Does your mum know you're here, my boy?"

"No, she doesn't." Bloody hell, _witnesses?_ He couldn't murder Gold in front of some wretched child who'd run off to spill everything. "She's busy with the people they rescued from the library last night. I wanted to ask if – "

That was when Captain Hook turned.

That was when he saw.

He could feel his heart crumbling to cinders in his chest, could feel his breath stopping, was briefly and mortifyingly certain that he was about to faint. It was like looking at his own ghost, from a thousand years ago when he'd been young. The boy had a mop of black hair, blue eyes, a light spattering of freckles, and even that confident set to the small shoulders, the way of standing – _No. No. No._ It was _impossible._ Some vile trick or illusion of Gold's, not a –

"Hi," said the lad curiously, his bright, eager gaze taking in the pirate's strange clothes and snow-dripping cloak. "Are you new in town? Us too."

Killian Jones opened and shut his mouth without a single word emerging. Finally, what made its way through the stranglehold in his throat was not at all what he'd planned. "Father?"

The boy – Gold had called him David – cocked his head. "What?"

"What's – your father's name?" _Oh God, oh God, oh God, no, no. Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to._

David looked surprised. "I actually was going to. . ." He shuffled his feet, gazing up shyly through his fringe of dark eyelashes, and Killian realized that he was about six or seven. "My mom just told me the other day. It's Colin."

 _Oh._ Of course not. He felt as if he was dropping a hundred stories in an elevator, as if his stomach had been ripped out. _Don't be an idiot._ Of course there were other men in the world with black hair and blue eyes, men who were truly fathers, not someone like him. But for that moment, when he'd believed, it had almost torn him in half. He was trying to breathe, but nothing was happening. Even worse, Gold was watching every moment of this, taking it in with utter glee – that bastard, that _bastard –_

"Run along, lad," Gold said. "Just for a moment. I have some business to finish, and then I'll be delighted to help you with whatever you need."

"Oh. Okay. I'm sorry for bothering you." David grinned, a crooked smile that once more made Killian's heart stop. With that, he skipped to the door and vanished up the street in the snow.

"A shock, was it?" Gold asked lazily. "Didn't count on that, eh?"

Killian was still gasping as if he had been chased by a train, but at this, he fought his shock and fury under control to say something. "Don't know what you're talking about."

"Dreadful liar. Still going to stab me?" Gold was all but rubbing his hands. He was enjoying this so bloody much that it must be his bloody birthday. "Fine. Then I can have the satisfaction of taking from you, as you did from me, your son _and_ his mother both."

For an eternal moment, Killian only heard ringing in his ears. Then a sensation as if a small bomb had exploded in his chest. His voice was heavy, slow, and stupid. "You. . . what?"

"Dear me. Did I stutter?"

"You're – lying – "

"Am I?" Gold's grin stretched across his face, an insane rictus. "You saw him for yourself. As for the reason he thinks his father's name is Colin. . . well, that was his mother's doing. Lying to him for his own good. She doesn't want anything to do with you, and who can blame her?"

"Who?" He knew. He knew. Oh God. Oh _God._ There was only one woman he'd slept with on Earth, ever. His legs had turned to mud, his chest to ice. "If you – if you _dare touch her –_ "

"Miss Swan?" Gold affected a look of surprise. "Oh yes, she's here as well. But she's quite safe from me. I do want the curse broken, after all. But if you don't turn about right now and leave forever, the things I'll do to your lad _will,_ I promise, make Milah's fate look bountiful and desirable in comparison."

Killian couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Shock was coiling up his insides, melting them to sludge. Battery acid burned through him like an electric jolt. Oh God. Oh God. The mermaid queen. _Our vengeance will be written in your blood, in the blood of your children, of your children's children!_ How gleefully he'd told her that he had none. Much as he wanted to, he couldn't even blame that on Gold. That was his doing. His. _A son. I have a son._ The one thing he'd wanted for most of his miserable life, and now –

He lifted his head. Slowly, slowly. Gold stood a few feet away from him, blazing in triumph. Smirking. Confident that this time, he had his enemy in a hammerlock for good.

"How," the pirate said.

"Sorry?" Gold cocked his head. "What was that?"

" _How dare you speak Milah's name?"_ Rage such as he had never known was coursing through him like poison, like black blood and fermented wine, like an explosion of broken glass and a thousand burning stars. _"How dare you threaten my son?"_

"Taken to the idea of fatherhood already?" The crocodile's smirk turned insufferable. "I didn't peg you for the type. But as I said, leave, _now,_ or I'll – "

" _TO HELL WITH YOU!"_ Captain Hook roared, loud enough to set everything in the shop quaking. _"DO YOU THINK I'M A BLOODY COWARD? DO YOU THINK I'M RUNNING AWAY? DO YOU THINK I'M EVER AGAIN GOING TO STOP UNTIL YOU – "_

Gold drew a long, thin rapier from his cane with a flourish. "Remember our last duel, pirate?"

Hook clawed for his own sword, ripped it from the scabbard. The world was red, red, red, _crimson,_ burning, _burning,_ and so was he. "Die. You're going to die."

Gold giggled. "No, dearie. I won't be dying here. Just you."

Blades out, the two men circled each other, staring each other down so viciously that it was a miracle the shop had not yet spontaneously combusted. Outside, the snow kept falling. Faintly, there might have been shouts, figures approaching at speed. Hook didn't know. Didn't care. This ended now, all of it, once and forever. He was going to –

He lunged, and Gold rose to meet him. Steel tangled in a shriek of sparks.

And then, the running footsteps reached the pawn shop, and the door burst open.


	31. Chapter 31

The entire walk home, as she could hear her heart pounding in her ears, see her breath gusting silver in the frigid November night, Emma convinced herself that she had been imagining things. When she'd looked again, squinting through the snow, the pirate ship – if it had been there at all – was gone, and after the bitch of a night she'd had, she certainly wasn't about to crawl down there and go exploring. It could have all kinds of prosaic, boring explanations, though admittedly she was struggling to think of them, but hey, this place was weird. Even without the weird, it was, you know. _Historic._ Who was to say that they didn't have a two-master just lying around for special occasions, spruce it up and sail it out in the bay every so often? She hadn't seen it before, but that didn't count for a whole lot around here. The most likely explanation was just that her over-stressed brain had momentarily gone on the fritz. It would figure.

Stamping and blowing, she finally reached the brick building on its quiet treed street, a cozy glow filtering through the curtained windows. It was four flights of stairs up to her apartment, where she unlocked the door and stepped in, shivering. Snowflakes were melting in her tangled hair, and she probably looked like the Wicked Witch just after Dorothy had thrown the bucket on her. Fingers clumsy with cold, she unbuttoned her black peacoat and slung it on the hook, visions of hot cocoa with cinnamon dancing in her head. Maybe a dash of Jack, if she was sure that David was asleep. Maybe two.

Mary Margaret, who was sitting on the couch marking arithmetic quizzes for her fifth-graders, glanced up. "How did it go?" she asked anxiously. "Nobody's been in that library for years, and I thought I heard sirens – "

"Yeah. You did." Emma headed for the kitchen. "There were two people imprisoned in the freaking basement of that place. Graham and I got them out and took them to the hospital."

Mary Margaret gawked. "Oh my God, that's. . . that's terrible. You're going to open an investigation, I'm sure?"

"I'd feel better about our chances if Regina wasn't already up our collective asses." Emma balled her hand into a fist and hit the countertop, causing nothing but her knuckles to hurt. "But that would probably be because Regina did it. I'm sure of it. I just need proof, to question them or get a clue or anything that I can use to – "

Mary Margaret looked shocked. "Why on earth would _Regina Mills_ have any reason to lock people underground? She can be prickly, it's true, but I don't think she'd – "

 _Because she's the Evil Queen._ Emma didn't entirely believe it, though it seemed as likely as anything at this point, but she _was_ increasingly convinced that there was something fundamentally wrong with the woman. _Since Tamara and Greg were here back when Killian shot Belle in Gold's shop, they already knew all about this place and what it was. She wouldn't want them spilling._ Yes, she definitely had to talk to the rescued hostages, assuming they didn't miraculously disappear overnight. She'd asked the nurses at the hospital about a dozen times to call her if anything funny happened, but couldn't be sure of their ability or willingness to carry through if Regina started throwing her weight around. What was more, she didn't have a single real ally. Gold would give her sly tips, but his favors always came at a staggering price. Graham was on her side, but for whatever reason, couldn't defy Regina. Everyone else. . .

"Let's just say it wasn't the body snatchers," Emma said at last, pulling the cocoa tin from the cupboard and stirring several spoonfuls into the warm milk. She rooted in the fridge for the can of aerosol whip, garnished the drink, and shook cinnamon over it, then took a slug. "You gonna head back downstairs to your place? It's late, you probably have to hit the hay. Oh, if you want me to give you something since this was totally last-minute, I can grab the checkbook – "

Mary Margaret shook her head. "No, it's fine. I was actually wondering if you and David want to come over for Thanksgiving. We could cook dinner together, more efficient than either of us doing it for ourselves, and you know. . ." She shrugged shyly. "It would be nice."

 _Nice._ The hot chocolate burned a little too much on its way down, and Emma turned away, trying not to cough up a lung. She had been asking her neighbor to babysit so often that it seemed crass not to accept at least one social engagement in return. And there was no denying that she felt comfortable with Mary Margaret in a way she rarely did. Emma – tough, fierce, independent, bounty-hunting, ass-kicking Emma – wasn't the kind of woman who got asked if she needed help out in grocery stores, or was caught dead at cosmetics counters or mommy blogs, or even felt comfortable casually sharing details about her life. She had fended off countless invitations to join play groups or parents' associations back in Boston, where the other moms compared their designer handbags and complained about their husbands. In fact, until now, she'd barely had any female friends since Wendy.

"I don't know," Emma hedged. "I'm not sure you want to be around David after he's had too much sugar. And we went shopping already and everything, I don't. . ."

"It's all right," Mary Margaret said quickly. "I understand if you don't want to, I just, you know. . . I thought I'd ask, I don't exactly have anyone to cook for either, so. . ." She shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, and Emma thought of seeing her and the elder David, David Nolan, at school the other day. How intimate they'd looked."No pressure, I just. . ."

"Actually," Emma said, making a decision. "Yeah. All right. We'll come over."

"You – you will?" Mary Margaret blinked, then beamed, her delight so evident that Emma felt even worse for having initially turned her down. "That would be great! I'll make a pumpkin pie, I've never really liked apple pie for some reason so I hope you don't mind – "

"No, pumpkin pie is great." Emma managed to smile. "What else would you have, right? And I'll try to keep the kid from trashing your apartment. If the snow doesn't stop, though. . ."

"No problem." Mary Margaret picked up her papers and shuffled them back into her purse. "I _should_ get going, though. See you soon?"

"Yeah, soon."

Emma waved her out, shut the door, and finished her hot chocolate, staring at her blurred reflection in the dark windows. Then she rinsed the cup, threw it in the dishwasher, and padded into the bathroom. She was just emerging, thinking longingly of her warm and waiting bed in its curtained nook, when she heard small footsteps descending the stairs from the loft. "Mom?"

Startled, she turned. It was David, in his Star Wars pajamas. "Hey, buddy. Why are you awake?"

"I had a bad dream." David's lip quivered. "There was an evil witch after me, and then there was a mermaid who wanted to eat me, and she drowned me. It was really scary!"

Emma wondered if it made her a bad mother that her first reaction was relief that it wasn't Henry again. She tousled her son's dark hair. "The only evil witch around here is the mayor, and I promise, no mermaids. You can go down to the harbor tomorrow and look if you don't believe me. Come on, back to bed."

"No!" David clung to her like a barnacle. "I want to sleep with you!"

"Look, I had a really long day, I need to – " Emma rubbed her weary, aching eyes. Yes, definitely failing on the mother front, not taking five goddamn minutes to comfort her kid after a nightmare. She blew out a breath. "Okay."

David pattered after her into the sleeping nook, and they crawled into bed together, pulling the heavy covers up. Snow was still scratching at the windowpane, but he curled up against her and dropped off again almost immediately, his deep, slow breathing and his warm little weight obscurely comforting. She thought of the nights back in Boston, watching movies on the couch together. So rare, those nights. Realizing only now the depths of the damage inside her, that she was honestly terrified of loving her own child too much, that she couldn't stop or control how much she already did. Six years of pretty much just him and her, and she was furiously trying to put the brakes on finding anyone else she could care for like that. Holding herself away. But even if she was an irredeemable fuckup, she was, as she'd confessed to Mary Margaret, terrified of transmitting the same to him. _I want to give him the best, but what if the best isn't me?_

She fell asleep eventually, and had murky, anxious dreams of her own. They both woke early the next morning, just barely after sunrise, and David appeared to have regained his joie de vivre; he was bouncy as ever as they ate breakfast, especially due to the fact that it was the start of Thanksgiving break. "Mom, can I go out and play? I know you have to go back to the hospital and talk to those people, but I don't want to. Please? Please!"

Emma considered. It was practically a crime against humanity to deny a six-year-old boy the opportunity to romp around in half a foot of freshly fallen snow, and David _would_ be bored out of his skull if she took him to the hospital with her, whining and tapping his feet and making it hard to focus on properly questioning Tamara and Greg. This was presumably the kind of small town where people never locked their doors and looked out for each other's children, but considering how slippery David had been recently, she was having issues with letting him go out alone. Still, it would be extremely lame to wake up Mary Margaret, probably crashed out on the first day of her break from small children, and send her straight back to babysitting one.

"All right," Emma said, "but you can't leave downtown or go anywhere with anyone, all right? I'm serious, kid. If I find out that you've hared off with one more stranger, I'm going to – "

"Ground me until I'm thirty," David finished, with a superior sassiness that really did not befit a child of his age. He grinned. "Maybe just until I'm twenty-five?"

Emma stared at him, laughed despite herself, then gave him the stink-eye just as a reminder. They finished breakfast and bundled up, and he leapt down the stairs so exuberantly that she was afraid that he would break his neck. He didn't, of course, and blasted out into the silent white morning as if fired from a rocket, whooping at the top of his lungs.

"Don't wake up everybody on the block!" Emma shouted after him, aiming guilty glances at all the shut and curtained windows. As she herself had walked home last night, she had the prospect of a chilly slog to the hospital, and tugged her knit beanie more tightly over her blonde curls. Boots crunching in the sidewalk salt, she looked over her shoulder one more time at her son, who clearly thought this day was the best thing that had ever happened in his life, and set off.

Storybrooke General looked as shut down as the rest of the town when she trudged up in the rotunda, icicles dripping from the portico and the ER sign blinking red in the drifting mist. She touched her deputy sheriff badge nervously and headed through the sliding glass doors, checked in, then climbed the stairs to the second floor where they had put Tamara and Greg. She would definitely prefer to handle the first phase of questioning solo. It wasn't that she didn't trust Graham, not exactly – but there were too many times when the mayor had somehow known something that she'd only told the sheriff. When she'd asked him about it, Graham insisted stoutly that he didn't narc to Regina, and her lie detector wanted to believe him, but. . .

As she drew closer, Emma saw someone slumped, asleep, in an uncomfortable Formica chair outside the hospital room. It was, in fact, Graham Humbert himself, gold-brown curls falling in his face in a manner that gave her a queer urge to stroke them away. She hesitated, trying to decide whether to wake him, but he snorted and jerked upright, blinking blearily before spotting her. "Em – I mean, Deputy Swan?"

"What are you doing here?" A wry smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

He blinked. "Well, I. . . well, I just heard you telling the nurses to call you if anything happened, and you wanted them to keep an eye on Tamara and Greg just in case, so I was. . . you know. Taking care of it for you."

"You big dork," Emma said, both exasperated and affectionate. "Are you seriously telling me that you slept in a freaking hospital chair all night because you overheard me talking to the nurses about something?"

"I. . . yes. Why?" Graham sat up and winced. "Well, now that we're both here, we probably want to head in and get started on some answers, huh?"

Emma hesitated. "Don't take this the wrong way, but is there any chance I could handle this myself?"

"What? Why?"

"Do you. . . know these two from anywhere?"

Graham looked furtherly puzzled. "No. Should I?"

 _Ah._ Considering that he himself had been the one to arrest them after the break-in of Gold's shop six and a half years ago, this was just as weird, if not more so, then him failing to remember the time he'd flipped out on her as they were trying to hunt down Killian. _Regina's been messing with his memory somehow._ Or was it just a side effect of a curse that was supposed to make everyone forget everything? Either way, she didn't want to play tiddlywinks with one of the biggest, if not _the_ biggest, case Storybrooke had ever had.

"Never mind," Emma said. "Go home and change your clothes and get some real sleep. You pulled an all-nighter, I can take it from here. Okay?" Her voice softened as she brushed the dangling curl back over his forehead. "Now go. Shoo. That's the law talking."

"I thought we were both the law," Graham grumbled, but he got to his feet, brushed off his jeans, and made his way, only somewhat unsteadily, for the door. Emma watched to make sure he didn't pull anything cute, then turned back to the hospital room and quietly let herself in.

Tamara and Greg were both asleep. Their beds were set side by side, divided by a curtain, and they were covered in sterile white blankets, hooked to monitors and IVs administering fluids and nutrients and medications and anything else that was needed after spending God knew how long as prisoners underground. Thankfully, they did not look to have been poisoned or turned into toads or anything else untoward, though it was hard to say if this was due to Graham's constant vigilance or not. Emma felt obliquely bad about having to wake them, but she needed answers. She moved toward Tamara, who was closer, and gently shook her.

The other woman stirred, then jumped, looking alarmed, before remembering where she was. She took a deep breath and sank back regally on her pillows, a queen holding court. "Can I help you, Sheriff Swan?"

"Yeah." Emma pulled up a chair and switched on the tape recorder in her pocket. "This is just informal. Don't want to put you under any pressure, but I need to get the ball rolling."

Tamara's eyes flickered. "I'm allowed to have a lawyer present during this, I assume?"

"Of course," Emma said, doing her best to sound soothing. "But last night when we were hauling you out of there, you said you were on my side, and my side wants to do my job and see somebody pay for this. I'm guessing you don't have a whole lot of desire to protect whoever threw you down there?"

Tamara smiled gracefully. "Of course not. I apologize. Unfortunately, I don't know that we'll be a great deal of help. We never saw who took us out of the cell in the station and down to the library basement. They never asked us anything, tried to find out why we'd come or who we were – just took us out in the dead of night and made us disappear."

"Okay," Emma repeated. It wasn't setting off any alarm bells on her lie detector, but it still didn't feel quite right. "Did you smell anything – a perfume, something like that? Do you think it was a man or a woman?"

"I don't know."

"And they really never said anything at all? Look, the last time we. . . met, you talked about a failsafe, a self-destruct trigger. I have sympathy for what's happened to you, believe me, but it sounded like you weren't just coming up here for the pleasant coastal New England ambiance."

"Of course we weren't," Tamara scoffed – quite surprising Emma, who had expected her to insist the contrary. She rolled her head at Greg, who was still asleep. "I'm helping the man I love avenge someone _he_ loved very much. Does the name Kurt Flynn mean anything to you?"

Startled, Emma shook her head. "No."

"That's his father," Tamara said, indicating Greg again. "Or I should say, _was_ his father. When Greg was a boy, just after his mother died, his father took him camping up here in the Maine woods. Trying to take his mind off it. They stumbled into this place. Into Storybrooke. Only one of them came out. Kurt Flynn has never been seen again. Greg has spent his _life_ trying to find this town, and take revenge on the woman who stole his father." Tamara's dark eyes held Emma's, unblinking. "Regina."

Something like an electric current rocketed down Emma's spine. _I'm helping the man I love avenge someone_ he _loved very much._ She couldn't help but think of Killian, his centuries-long hunt for vengeance for his Milah, her disbelief that one man could love that fiercely and that long, crashing headlong through every obstacle that common sense and utter impossibility could throw in the way. But here was a live wire, a _very_ live wire in her quest to uncover Regina's schemes, and thus, she had to handle it with excruciating caution. "Then I'm pretty sure that we have a lot in common. If Regina was the one who kidnapped Greg's dad, if you rolled into town and found out what kind of operation she was running here, she'd have a lot of incentive to make sure you disappeared forever, right?"

"I suppose," Tamara allowed. "But – "

"In the car on the way up here last time, you talked as if there were more people involved in this. An organization. _H.O._ What's that stand for?"

Faint surprise showed in the other woman's face. "You _are_ sharp."

"I thought you and your friends were going to kill me," Emma said evenly. "You can understand if I was on red alert."

Tamara had the decency to look abashed. "We do regret that, as I said. We didn't really want to hurt you. But you had to be with us in order that we could find Storybrooke again. This place, this curse – it's all mixed up with you, don't you see? It's invisible to the outside world, impermeable. . . unless the savior is the one crossing through."

It wasn't an electric current this time. It was a bolt of motherfucking lightning. "What did you just say?"

"The savior," Tamara repeated. "We had access to a lot of research on the subject, and it made it quite clear. It's you who has to end this. Make no mistake, Greg and I want you to do it. We _want_ to see Regina brought down, all her ugly little skeletons toppling out of the closet."

"But – " Emma's head was starting to spin sickeningly. "I've – I've heard something like this before, but – _how?_ How do I break the fucking thing?"

Tamara hesitated. "Not sure."

"That's helpful." Emma clenched her fist around the tape recorder in her pocket, trying to wrestle herself back under control. She heard herself asking Wendy Darling the same question in desperation, back in London right after Killian had disappeared, and Wendy's similar inability to give her an answer. _I imagine that's why it's a terrible curse._ It loomed up in front of her, huge and impassable, even as she remembered what Gold had said about it. _But the curse is what's keeping Henry from finding you – from finding anyone in this town – and naturally, he does want to. I am none so sure, however, that you should let him. If I know anything about Neverland, and the sort of creatures who exist there, it's opening the door to a darkness that could destroy us all._

The solution according to Gold, of course, was to team up with him, find a way to Neverland, deal with Henry and _then_ break the curse. It was terrible, but it was protecting them from being found by even worse things. . . yet it would bring down Regina, it would make Emma remember herself, give her back her family. . . at the cost of what? _I don't want to kill Henry. I don't want to hurt him._ Her first son, the shadowy ghost haunting her dreams and David's alike. _Pan. What kind of power does he have? Who is he?_

Emma opened her mouth. To say what, she had no idea. Just then, however, there was a short, urgent rap on the door.

She turned. "Yes? Come in."

The door swung open, and a harried nurse stuck her head in. "Sheriff Swan? I'm so sorry to interrupt, but your son is downstairs in reception, looking for you. He's quite insistent."

"David?" Emma was surprised – and considerably unsettled. Her independent, adventurous, fearless kid, having been granted license to run around all by himself, wouldn't come looking for her here unless it was serious. She jumped to her feet. "Thanks, Ms. – "

"Green," Tamara said politely.

"Ms. Green. You've been very helpful. I have to go." Emma switched off the tape and hurried after the nurse, out of the room and down the stairs to the front desk. Sure enough, David was hopping up and down in agitation, craning his head in every direction in search of her.

"David? Sweetie!" Emma ran to him. "Are you hurt? What's going on? What's wrong?"

"I – I was at Mr. Gold's shop." He bit his lip. "There's someone there. A man, I don't know who. I've never seen him before. I went in, and he gave me a really funny look and asked who my dad was and I told him, and then I was going to leave, and I looked back, and they were. . ."

Emma's stomach suddenly felt as if it had been sucked out of her back. Time to yell at him for visiting Gold later. She licked her dry lips. "Were what?"

"About to _fight."_ David looked upset. "With _swords._ I think you need to stop them."

It felt as if the ground was falling out from under her, as if she was being hurled into an utter, endless abyss. _It's not, it's not,_ pleaded one part of her brain, and another screamed, _It is, it is._ She had no idea how she was presenting such a composed exterior, when everything was crashing like a shipwreck on the inside, as she smiled and said, "Stay here, okay? I'll be right back," and touched the gun in her jacket, and burst out into the snowy streets, and began to run.

* * *

All Captain Hook saw as the door crashed open was a blur, sprinting to fling itself between him and his mortal enemy, as if utterly unaware how much grief, guilt, revenge, and rage thickened the air like a bomb about to blow. Saw it – her – pull a gun and look very much as if she knew how to use it, spin to face him, and –

Dear. _God._

Their eyes locked for a mad, eternal moment, staring into each other's faces as if they'd both been trapped in Medusa's gaze and turned to stone. Her hair fell in snow-sparkling tangles to her shoulders, pale as winter, gold as an angel, so cold and sculpted and beautiful that it made every sinew of his body ache with the desire to snatch her up in his arms and never let her go, to kiss her until neither of them could breathe, to break, to fall, to drown –

Emma Swan was thinking no such thing. Her lips parted briefly as if about to say something, and then she punched him hard enough to make him see stars. He reeled backwards, and she lunged after him, throwing him flat and slamming her boot down on his wrist, wrenching his sword out of his hand and kicking it into the corner. Her voice was a ragged, breathless hiss as she cocked her gun and trained it dead between his eyes. _"Don't you move a fucking muscle."_

"Well _done_ , Miss Swan," the crocodile commented gleefully. "To be honest, I wasn't sure that you had it in – "

Emma whirled on him. "You don't get to say anything either. Are you out of your _mind?"_

"I had nothing to do with it. I was minding my own business, perfectly aboveboard, when our reprobate friend here came storming in with blood and brimstone on his tiny mind. Otherwise, I never would have – "

"Shut up. I know what's between you two. Don't you try to play innocent." Emma looked more furious than Killian ever remembered; even as she had him on his back, holding him at gunpoint, his heart was pounding with the desperate disbelief and euphoria of seeing her, of breathing in her scent, of seeing her like something out of a dream after years – how many? How old was David, oh God, _David,_ six? Seven? – of being apart. "If you would just give it up before you – "

"It's on my to-don't list." Gold flashed a sleek, vulpine grin.

Emma shot him a look of poorly disguised loathing. Then she pulled a pair of handcuffs from her belt, planted a knee on Killian's chest, and set to work. It was only then that she noticed the absence of his left hand and what featured in its place, and her lips parted again in shock. But as before, she was hard as steel, silent as death, and just as utterly undeterred. She unclicked the hook and shoved it into her pocket, then cuffed his wrist and stump together, hauling him to his feet. Without another word, she marched him out of the pawn shop, into the snowy street.

Killian twisted, trying desperately to look at her. "Lass – Emma – _Emma – "_

She completely ignored him, fishing out a phone with a gloved hand and thumbing in a number. She held it to her ear, still jamming the gun into the small of his back, and waited as it rang. Then she said, "Graham. I'm really sorry, I know I just sent you home to sleep, but I need you to bring the squad car down to Gold's right now. No, it's not about them. Yes, it's extremely urgent. Great. It's under control. Thanks." With that, she hung up.

" _Emma."_ Killian's voice split the cold air like a shot. "Emma, look at me. _Look at me._ I – I know this isn't what you expected – it wasn't what I expected either, _Christ,_ I didn't – "

"Didn't know that I was going to be here?" she snapped, reading his mind with uncanny accuracy. She wheeled on him at last, lethal as a deck gun, her face bloodless except for her feverish green eyes and the spots of high color scalding her cheeks. "You fucking _vanish off the face of the earth_ for _almost seven years,_ and then turn up _here,_ trying _again_ to kill Gold and dressed up like some – like some – " She seemed unable to find the words. _"Pirate?"_

"I – " All of his carefully crafted, eloquent speeches, where he'd explain everything and beg her to forgive him, were withering like a rose in frost. "Emma – I – lass, bloody _look at me,_ I swear, it wasn't that I meant it, he threatened – "

"You haven't changed _at all,"_ she hissed. "You're exactly who you were always were – that loose cannon, still out for himself and no one else, who wants to kill Gold and to hell with the consequences for anyone. I don't know where you've been, I don't know how you found your way to Storybrooke, but I want you to _Get. Out. Now."_

If she had taken his heart in her fist and squeezed, it could not have been worse. He stared at her, hearing Gold's words echo like a sentence of damnation. _As for the reason he thinks his father's name is Colin. . . well, that was his mother's doing. Lying to him for his own good. She doesn't want anything to do with you, and who can blame her?_ He had thought the crocodile was just trying to hurt him, had opened a window into his soul and extracted his deepest dreams and darkest fears, but it felt as it had when he saw David for the first time, when he tried to breathe and nothing happened. She had never been so heart-stoppingly beautiful, and so heart-shatteringly barred away. He could see her walls engulfing her like a cage of ice and iron, nearly tangible enough to touch. He had nothing to say. He couldn't. Nothing but a name.

"David," he whispered. "Our son."

She went as still as if he'd hit her. The silence was ghastly. Then, moving her lips the barest bit that was humanely possible, she breathed, _"How dare you."_

"I saw him!" Killian couldn't help himself. "If I'd – I never – "

"No." Emma jerked away. "He's _my_ son. I was the one who lost my job when I came home from London pregnant with him. I was the one who had to catch on as the hospital _janitor_ and work six nights a week at minimum wage until he was born. I was the one who went through eleven hours of labor with only one nurse who even held my hand. I was the one who struggled to keep a roof over our heads and any food on the table at all, the winters where I couldn't even afford to pay our heating bill regularly, the only thing I _have_ in this _world –_ raising him and working my ass off and being completely convinced that I'm a horrible mother and scarring him for life. You don't get to talk to me about him."

" _Emma –_ God's _sake –_ he's my son too, my _son,_ do you think that means nothing to me, as if I can just walk away from him, from you – Gold threatened him, he said – "

" _I don't care what Gold said!"_ Emma screamed. "I didn't _need_ to, you know. I didn't _need_ to have your baby, or even keep him. _But I did._ Even knowing what was likely to happen, everything that _did_ happen – " He thought she was going to cry, but Emma Swan did not cry. Her face was a mask, tearless. "For you. I did it because of _you._ Because I was stupid enough to think that we'd find each other again someday, and you might have changed. Do you think I'd have done that for _any random guy_ who just so _happened_ to knock me up? It might have been naïve, but I was naïve, I was twenty-two and pregnant and alone and broke and _fucking – heartbroken._ And now you come back and _you're exactly the fucking same._ You _sicken_ me."

"Do I _look_ remotely the same? Do you think that, lass? Really? You're smart, you can see it. Every moment since we left each other – I have been fighting like bloody _hellfire_ to get back to you, passing through places and people I never wanted to see again, losing this – " He brandished his stump, as best he could with the cuffs, in her face. "And I don't _care!_ I'd give the other one, I would give _everything,_ if it brought me back to – "

Emma's lips curved in a mirthless smirk. She glanced up the street as if in search of Graham, but no police car could yet be discerned. "Really," she whispered. "That's very nice. And yet your first priority, when you finally made it here, wasn't to come find me or see who you might be hurting or any of it. It was revenge. The same as ever. Fine. That's your choice. But don't you _dare_ have the _gall_ to stand there and _lie to my face about it."_

Killian struggled for words, but nothing came. He was caught dead to rights, with no excuse or explanation or justification possible. "I don't deny it," he said at last, hoarsely. "There's nothing I can possibly say or do to make it right. For so long. . . Emma, this is _me,_ this is me as much as the man you knew, and I. . . I'm the worst human alive. I'm not proud of this or anything. Just please. . . _please. . ._ you don't have to have anything to do with me again, you don't have to even look at me, but my son, please, my son. . ."

"You've known you're a father for fifteen minutes and now you want to fight me for custody?" Emma's voice rose on a barking, glass-breaking laugh. "Like any court in their right _mind_ is going to look at you and think you make a fit – "

"I don't!" He fell to his knees in front of her, begging, pleading, as he hadn't since the day Baelfire had found the drawing of Milah and confronted him. _"I don't deserve it!_ But David, please, just let me see him, even just once, please, please, _please – !"_

Emma flinched away from the naked, ragged agony in his voice. She breathed hard and fast through her nose, not looking at him, her entire body strung too tight to hold, the center coming undone. "You son of a bitch," she whispered at last. _"You son of a bitch."_

"Destroy me, Emma." He stared up at her. "If that's what you want. Do it."

She flinched again. He saw her hands curl into fists, whether with the effort of not touching him or not killing him he couldn't be sure – although it was almost certainly the latter. Then she spun away, and, following her gaze, he saw the Storybrooke sheriff's cruiser plowing down the street toward them. Then it jerked to a halt, and none other than Graham Humbert himself leapt out. "Emma! I came as fast as I could! Is everything – who the _hell – "_

Mastering herself, but with a look of such searing despair that Killian felt it like a punch, Emma stepped away. "He broke into Gold's shop and tried to kill him," she said, clipped and curt. "You'd better take him to jail. Make sure you lock him up well. He's a con and an escape artist."

"Right." Graham marched forward, seized Killian, and steered him toward the car, seemingly surprised by his lack of resistance. "Just between us, that was a really stupid idea, mate."

 _I'm not your bloody mate._ He wanted to snarl it, wanted to scream, wanted to break loose and run to Emma, who stood behind them, face dead white, lips set. It was tearing him in half to be pulled away from her, from anything he had imagined to come back to – did he seriously fancy that he'd return from the dead after over half a decade and she'd shower him with grateful kisses and pledges of true love? Did he seriously imagine that he deserved it? All he could see was a dark tunnel, closing down on him, strangling him. _Hook. Hook. Hook._

Graham forcibly immured him in the back seat of the cruiser and slammed the door. Killian leaned his head against the leather, feeling very much as if he was about to be sick. _Our vengeance will be written in your blood, in the blood of your children._ Aye, try telling Emma about that, about everything. About the broken promises, the shattered dreams. _Hook. Hook. Hook._

Graham got behind the wheel and pulled out. Killian looked back. Saw Emma still standing there in the middle of the street, motionless, watching them go. A lost girl. Lost forever. Watched her until she grew small and smaller, and then vanished entirely in the falling snow.


	32. Chapter 32

As she watched the police car trundle up the street, as she could see Killian still staring at her from the backseat until it disappeared around a corner, the only thought in Emma Swan’s head was her overwhelming, heart-stopping need to get away. She had never been so desperate to flee, heedless of any and all responsibilities – whether it was going back to interview Tamara or in to shout at Gold, nothing could get past the ice-cold animal terror crashing on her like a tidal wave. _No._ This couldn’t be happening. Not after so long. Not after almost seven years of absolute, utter nonexistence, no word, no sound, no indication at all that he was even still alive – only for him to turn up from the blue, dressed in his fucking pirate Halloween costume, and once more go straight back to trying to kill Gold and tear this place apart. _No._ Not him. Not here. Not like this.

Not like this.

After a moment, Emma turned and began to blunder away, each foot feeling like a thousand tons of lead. David would be okay at the hospital, and she couldn’t stand for him to see her like this, about to come to pieces. _David, please, just let me see him, even just once, please, please,_ please – ! Even hearing it in her memory was enough to make her cringe. _No._ Like hell. Like she’d give Regina and Gold that weapon, like she’d give Killian that reward, like she’d allow herself that broken, trampled-on shred of desperate, girlish hope for parents and partner and family, as if she would be able to live, to breathe, if her walls came down for even a moment. . .

But right now, she was drowning.

Emma walked without stopping, head down, until she looked up and realized that she was just across from the elementary school, currently cold and empty for the Thanksgiving break. She hesitated, then jogged over, scaled the fence, and dropped down on the other side, heading to the swings. She brushed the snow off the seat and wedged herself in, kicking aimlessly at the ground. The dull, repetitive motion soothed her somewhat. Her hands were trembling as they clutched the chains, the cold seeping through her gloves. Back and forth, back and forth. She’d stay out here until she froze, the only way to keep herself together. Either that or –

“Emma? What are you _doing_ here?”

Startled, she jerked up. Mary Margaret Blanchard was standing in the archway, carrying a stack of book reports, art projects, and other such things that she must have dropped by to pick up. Her expression was confused and concerned, as well it might be upon seeing her upstairs neighbor attempting to freeze herself solid on a deserted playground. “There must be a foot of snow out here, we’re definitely getting a nor’easter – what’s going on? Are you – ”

Emma turned her face away. “Yeah. Fine. All fine. Good. Yeah. See you for Thanksgiving.”

After that, she sat very still, hoping that Mary Margaret would get the anvil-sized hint and leave. The other woman, however, did no such thing. Forcing her armload of paper into her shoulder bag, she hurried over to the swing set. “It’s freezing,” she said, in a very motherly tone, “and you look terrible. Oh my God, is everything all right? Is David – ”

“David’s fine.” Emma barely recognized her own voice. “I just needed. . . to think some stuff through. That’s all.”

“Out in the middle of a blizzard?” Mary Margaret’s skepticism was plain. “Emma. . . I don’t have the right to snoop on you, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost. If you’re sure that you – ”

She was interrupted by a high, scraping laugh, verging on the hairy edge of hysteria. “Maybe I have, all right? Fine. If you really have to know, David’s. . . David’s dad just turned up in town. About an hour ago. And I’ve already arrested him for breaking, entering, and attempted murder.”

“David’s. . . _dad?”_ Mary Margaret stared. “But I thought he was missing!”

“Yeah,” Emma snapped. “Yeah, I thought so too.”

“Oh, Emma.” Mary Margaret’s shock had already turned to sympathy, her dark eyes very soft and gentle. “That must be awful. I totally understand why you’re out here by yourself, but. . . come on. I’m going to take you to Granny’s and buy you something. It’s the least I can do.”

“What makes you think I want to talk about it?”

“I don’t think that at all, actually. If you just want to sit and not say a word, I’ll completely understand. But I’m not letting you freeze.” Mary Margaret put her hand under Emma’s elbow, levered her off the swing, and kept hold of her across the playground. They crunched through the snow to Mary Margaret’s car, tacky retro wood paneling and all, and got in, Emma trying to restore feeling to her fingers without it being obvious. There was a clunk and a roar as the engine started up, and Mary Margaret switched on the heat and the four-wheel drive, downshifting the manual transmission and setting off slowly along the iced-up street.

“Guess you get used to winter around here, huh?” Emma managed. She was trying to say something, anything, that would make her sound functional, not the kind of sad-sack mental case who had to be rescued from derelict schoolyards and fed hot meals for their own safety. It wasn’t easy, when she still felt as if she had been punched very hard in the stomach. “Normally in Boston it just sleets and looks crummy from November to March. Not really, you know. Picturesque.”

Mary Margaret nodded, steering into the alley by Granny’s Diner and coasting to a halt in the only plowed-out space. Then she hopped out, and Emma followed her reluctantly, up the steps into the warm restaurant. It was mostly empty, on the break between the breakfast and lunch hours, and Ruby, the waitress, came zooming up. “Guess what? We have avocado today!”

“That’s great,” Mary Margaret said, somewhat nonplussed. “Emma, Ruby, have you met?”

“Yeah,” Emma mumbled. “Briefly.”

They ducked into a booth along the far wall, where Emma sat staring at her hands until the menu arrived, then remembered that she should get in touch with the hospital and make sure her son was still there. A quick phone call later, David had been instructed via the receptionist to play quietly in the pediatric waiting area until she came to pick him up, which Emma knew would be greatly displeasing to a rambunctious six-year-old, but she couldn’t spare a single damn. She hung up, ordered lunch, and sat back with a shaky breath. Her resolve not to say a word, to shut everyone out and fucking deal with it, was rapidly disintegrating.

Mary Margaret gave her a gentle look. “I promise,” she said. “Nobody will hear it from me.”

Emma let out another unsteady breath. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to say anything until their food arrived. Even though she was starving, she unenthusiastically chased her fries around the plate, over and over. Then, as suddenly as a dam breaking, it came up. Everything. How she’d first met Killian Jones when she was in college, how he’d briefly taught at BC before vanishing, how she’d run into him in Oxford, their kiss in the Wadham gardens, the sense of danger and desertion – and desire – that had made her flee. Their paths crossing again two years later, when she was working for the Boston ATF and he was a wanted criminal. How she’d almost trapped him at the Renaissance Hotel, and he had gotten away. How she’d been kidnapped by Greg and Tamara and taken to Storybrooke, and so had he. How he’d shot Belle, and fled, and she’d tracked him to London, where all their secrets and all their lies and all their need came crashing to the fore. That one night and day of passion, everything he’d told her at dinner, how little she believed it and then, how much, she wished she could. Him stolen away in a twinkling, as she shouted and pounded helplessly on the hotel room door. How she’d gone to Wendy Darling in fruitless search of answers, then home, stunned and alone. And realizing, about a month later, that while he may be gone, he had left one vital part of himself behind.

“And so,” Emma finished, feeling completely drained, “yeah. He’s back here, and I. . . I don’t know what to do about it. David. . . do you think I want to tell David that this is his dad, let them get to know each other, and then risk that Killian’s going to disappear again? I can’t. I _can’t.”_

Mary Margaret’s look remained thoughtful. Then the other woman said, “Have you asked him?”

“Asked him what?”

“Where he’s been. What he’s done. All that.”

“No.” Emma’s hackles raised defensively. “I was too busy trying to stop him from murdering the pawnbroker, thanks very much.”

Mary Margaret sighed. After a sip of coffee, she asked very gently, “Do you _want_ to have him back in your life?”

“What?” Emma was caught on the hop. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Mary Margaret repeated patiently. “I know you’re upset, you’re angry, you’re betrayed, you’re hurt, you’re scared, and you have every right to be. He’s left you in the lurch for almost seven years, you’ve been raising his son alone, and your life has been far from easy. But Emma. . . do you think it could be that you’re terrified of letting him in again, because you know it would be out of your control? That if you did, you’d open yourself to being hurt again, and with him, how it felt with him, you couldn’t stand it?”

Emma’s mouth opened in shock. “I – that’s – completely beside the point,” she spluttered. “If all this time – if he just couldn’t give a fuck to find out where – ”

“You don’t know that,” Mary Margaret pointed out reasonably. “And from what you told me of his reaction, it doesn’t sound like that was the case.”

“So what?” Emma said bitterly. “He should have just returned for his son and paid me some child support every now and then? Or we’re obligated to get back together because we have a kid? No thank _you._ I’ve run into that sexist bullshit all the time, I’m not going to – ”

“That’s not what I said.” Mary Margaret’s expression remained patient. “It has to be your choice in any case. That was why I was asking if you wanted him back. If, putting aside everything else and just focusing on you, you were willing to offer him a second chance.”

“I’ve given him about a dozen.” Emma stabbed her dill pickle so violently that her fork clattered against the plate. “And all this time – ”

“Please, Emma. It will help. Just answer. Do you want him back?”

Emma stared at her, aghast that her walls were being breached like this, that someone was actually demanding her to talk directly about her feelings – she wasn’t used to this, it wasn’t safe. “You know, I don’t think this is the right time to – ”

“Look,” Mary Margaret said quietly. “I understand what it’s like to want someone you can’t have, or think you can’t. I understand what’s it’s like to tell yourself that what you feel doesn’t matter, or why should you waste your time like this, and to be convinced that he’s just playing you and he’s a jerk who doesn’t deserve what you have to give. Trust me. I do.”

Once again, Emma didn’t have a ready rebuttal for that. She wanted to say something, but was unsure whether to let on to Mary Margaret that she knew about her clandestine relationship with David Nolan. She squirmed uncomfortably instead, forced to confront the unassailable truth that lay at the heart of this whole disaster, even as she’d been dragging Killian out of the pawnshop in handcuffs, as he’d been pleading on his knees before her. _Every moment since we left each other – I have been fighting like bloody_ _hellfire_ _to get back to you, passing through places and people I never wanted to see again, losing this –_ But the fact that he’d been prepared yet again to value his vengeance over everything else, that he’d tried to lie to her about it, to kill Gold and damn the torpedoes, to choose that, to choose –

 _Not me._ It was cold and hollow in the pit of her stomach. That was what terrified her the most, what she had been trying to flee from, what this came down to. If she was being utterly honest, if she’d known that Killian Jones was back, she would have expected him to try to find her first and foremost. Would have wanted him to. Would have wanted him.

Wanted him so much she could barely endure it. So much that she could not remember how to dress herself, what day it was, how to write her own name. That as angrily as she’d lashed out at him, trying to wound him, it was to mask a pain that hurt her a thousand times worse. Every night since he’d gone. Every day. Wondering at least once. _Oh God, where are you?_

And that was when the son of a bitch finally came back, and broke her heart all over again.

“I don’t know,” Emma said numbly. “I can’t tell if I do or not.”

There was no condemnation in the look Mary Margaret returned to her, only a deep, deep compassion. “I know you want me to tell you that it’s all right if you just stay away from him for good and never work out the answer to that question,” she said gently. “But I’m not sure you can. Your son _does_ deserve a chance to get to know his father, and as for you. . . well, it’s not my place to tell you how to live your life. I do think you need to at least talk to him.”

“In jail?” Emma polished off the last of her croque-monsieur, licking the salt from her fingers. “Because that’s where I put him, and if you think that I’m just going to bust him out and bring him back to my place for a nice little – ”

“Maybe not,” Mary Margaret said. “But you need to be on equal footing, and you can’t do that if one of you is behind bars. I’ll swing by the hospital and pick David up, so you don’t have to worry about it. Take all the time you need.”

Emma narrowed her eyes. “Well, look who’s the little matchmaker.”

Mary Margaret shrugged. “Not necessarily. I just. . . Emma, I know it’s hard. It’s difficult and it’s unwelcome and it’s painful. But if this _is_ something you want, even the barest bit, you have to fight for it. You have to take a chance. I think you’ll know pretty quickly. If you really can’t stand the sight of him and want him out of your life forever, you’ll feel it. If not. . .”

For a moment longer, Emma was silent. Then she said abruptly, “You’re not. . . I don’t know, living vicariously through me, are you?”

Mary Margaret was startled. “What?”

“It’s just. . . I saw you and David Nolan together the other day, all right? And I. . . I kind of get the impression that since you two can’t be together for different reasons than mine, you want to help me out with my own troubled love life. Be, you know, Miss Fix-It. And that’s sweet and you mean well, but I don’t think that’s a good reason for trying to step in and – ”

Mary Margaret looked appalled. “Emma,” she whispered. “No. That’s not what this is about at all. Please. Is it really so hard to believe that someone – that _I –_ could truly want you to be happy, not because I think I’m getting something out of it, but because I care about you?”

Emma sank back into the squashy diner booth. “Okay. That was unfair. I’m sorry. I just. . . I’m just so scared of this. So scared. If it doesn’t work, I just. . .”

“I know.” Mary Margaret leaned forward and squeezed her hand. “But I also know that you’re brave, you’re strong, and that you’ve always done whatever you had to before, regardless of how hard it was. So it’s all right.” She released her grip. “Go on. Jump.”

* * *

For the last several hours, Captain Killian Jones had been enjoying the dubious hospitality of the Storybrooke jail, studiously not thinking of how easily he could escape from it, and likewise doing his damndest to avoid anything to make his captor think that he had anything less than his complete destruction at heart. But knowing that to concuss Emma’s partner – _work_ partner, it had better bloody be – and go on the run again would utterly end his already faint hopes of being let (har fucking har) off the hook, he had thus far managed, barely, to restrain his homicidal impulses. He just sat on the narrow cot, staring a hole through Humbert’s head as the sheriff sat at his desk, doing paperwork.

At last, even Graham could no longer pretend not to know that there was a furious pirate mentally assassinating him from twenty feet away. He glanced up. “You know, mate, it’s not _my_ fault you got yourself thrown in the clink. Looks as if you’ve made a career of it, to be frank.”

“Very funny.” Killian stalked closer, clanking his stump against the bars in what he hoped was a threatening sort of way. It would have been far more effective if he still had his hook, but Emma, of course, had confiscated it prior to delivering him into the custody of this spectacular idiot, this turd-eating marsh weasel, this fluffy-faced, knock-kneed, one-balled, shit-witted half-arsed excuse for a sheriff. There was no part of him that Killian did not instinctively and completely loathe on sight. Part of it was for how the bastard looked at Emma with his mooning puppy-dog eyes, so eager to run and do her bidding and smarm up to her like the interfering imbecile he was. Part of it – most of it – was for Killian himself. That he’d been gone so long, leaving her in such wretched circumstances, that she’d been completely justified in knocking the stuffing out of him, shouting at him, shutting him away. Indeed, it was as if the scales had fallen from his eyes, and what he gazed upon was strange and terrible. How bloody _stupid_ had he been, thinking he could get away with trying to kill Gold? Of putting that above the reason he’d fought so hard to return at all? No, no. He had it all wrong. If there was any man in this town that he should murder without delay, it was Graham.

“I don’t suppose you have any idea who you’re dealing with,” the pirate went on. “I surely didn’t come so far and suffer so much to listen to the japes of a man who is, surely, proof positive of reincarnation.”

That caught Graham off guard. “What – if this is about the wolf, I don’t – ”

Killian smiled sleekly. “Oh no, not about that at all. It’s simply that I fail to see how you could get quite this stupid in one lifetime alone.”

“You really think you’re amusing, don’t you?” Graham’s face darkened. “I will have you know, I am nobody’s fool, I’m not going to stand here and – ”

“Nobody’s fool? That’s very sad. Perhaps someone will be kind enough to take you home one day. But don’t worry, you’ll always have your inferiority complex.”

“If I were you,” Graham said through gritted teeth, “I’d take care about talking this way to someone who can let you out either later this day or later this decade.”

“Ah, a man who sticks by his convictions. You’ll remain an idiot no matter how much you’re ridiculed for it. I hear that you are quite the one for animals, so please do give that face back to the gorilla. But if you really think that – ”

_“Hey!”_

Killian and Graham jerked apart as if they’d been electrocuted, then pointed to each other, as the door of the sheriff’s station flew open and the last person either of them had expected to see, though really the only one it could be, came storming in. They both cleared their throats and papered on bright smiles, but Emma barely seemed to notice. Her jaw was clenched, head lowered as if she was about to charge, and her movements were tight, clipped, terse. She paced across the station floor, turned, then paced back, coming to a halt before the cell as abruptly as if she was about to dive from a cliff. “You,” she snapped at Killian. “I need to talk to you.”

He was most surprised, and suddenly, unwarrantedly hopeful. Changing in an instant from the sneering, sardonic tone he had employed on Graham, his voice was gentle. “I’m all ears, love.”

She grimaced, looking very much as if she had just swallowed something horrible, and his stomach sank. Oh, bugger. It was just to conclude whatever well-deserved epithets she had forgotten to heap on him earlier, doubtless with gormless Graham Humbert listening to every word, lowering the collective intelligence and good looks of the room by his mere presence. Still, Killian hadn’t been sure that Emma would be willing to be in the same place with him ever again. It was a sacrifice he’d be willing to make, even if –

“And,” Emma added, choking slightly, “I think it’s better if it was somewhere else than here.”

Killian’s jaw dropped. So did Graham’s. For a moment they both looked like idiots, but at least Killian could remedy that by closing his mouth. Graham, alas, was stuck that way for good. “Emma – are you _serious,_ you really want to let him out of jail, when you were the one who – ”

“I need to talk to him,” Emma repeated. “We. . . know each other from the past. Believe me, I’m probably going to be bringing him right back.”

Graham looked as if this was the worst idea he had ever heard in his life, but nonetheless, he stepped back as Emma took a ring of keys from the desk and twisted them in the lock. She opened the cell door and escorted Killian out, her fingers digging into his arm so tightly that he could feel it going numb. He would have been perfectly happy for her to hold twice as hard. It reminded him that she was here, that she was real, that she had come back at least for this, and it made him so ludicrously happy that a grin spread across his face. It lingered as she marched him past the speechless Graham (such a pity that that state of affairs wouldn’t last) and out into the swirling snow, to her car idling at the curb. Still the yellow Bug, which gave him a bit of a turn. She shoved him into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

“Who do I call if the police are the ones kidnapping me, darling?” He grinned again. “And please don’t tell me it’s Humbert. I’ll never forget the first time I met him, though I’ll keep trying.”

“Somebody’s in an annoyingly chipper mood.” Emma started the car and steered away down the street. “When I met _you,_ you were obnoxious and arrogant. Now you’re just the opposite.”

“Am I?” He brightened.

“Yes. Arrogant and obnoxious.”

Killian shut his mouth with a snap, having the uncomfortable sensation that he had just been gotten the better of, and refrained from offering any further witticisms as they drove. He peered out the window, trying to make out where they might be going, but as his experience of Storybrooke was limited to those parts having to do with Gold, he couldn’t be sure. He did notice that the snow was getting heavier, everything veiled in a soft shapeless white, and thought about asking if they were planning to get back. Then he decided that he had no interest in ruining a good thing for himself. He had no objection to being stranded together in a storm.

At last, when they were out of town, somewhere in the forest on an old logging road, Emma pulled in – with a skid making her knuckles go white on the wheel – in front of an abandoned cabin. Evidently, she had taken him as far out of the way as she could, avoiding both his territory and hers, which surprised him – he had expected her to go somewhere that she was clearly in charge. But she merely got out and began to flounder toward the door. He hurried after her and offered her his hand through the knee-high drifts, but she stubbornly ignored it. They scrambled up onto the sagging porch, and she did something to the lock. A moment later, the door yawned open, into the small, woodsy-smelling space. It was dim, cluttered, and cold.

“Not the most – ah – comfortable of hideaways, is it?” Killian bowed her ceremoniously through and shut it behind them, blocking out the freezing wind. Still, it could be worse. There was a table, chairs, fireplace, kitchen, and a narrow, pine-paneled hallway that must lead to a bedroom. Not that his thoughts had already strayed in that direction. Even if he was cross-eyed with how much he wanted to be with her, to break through her armor, to bring them back together, to hold her, for her to hold him. To smell her, taste her, touch her, drown. Not at all.

Emma, unsurprisingly, ignored him. She was on her hands and knees before the hearth, heaping old sticks of split firewood into the rusty grate, and dousing it liberally in lighter fluid before striking a match. Flames leapt up at once, leaving him to stand there and admire her brusque, competent skill (and the rest of it, of course). Gods, she was so beautiful. He had comforted himself with fantasies a thousand times, but they were nothing before the real woman: the long, thick pale-blonde hair, the perfect arch of her brows, the straight bridge of her nose, fine traceries of cheekbone, firm full mouth, merest suggestion of a dimple on her chin. The clean, slender lines of her body, the snow still melting on her jacket, the sharp and purposeful quality of her movements. The way she could, if she cared to, tear him apart in heart and mind, body and soul.

The sparks felt hotter than the fire. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she sat across from him. “So,” she said. “Talk.”

“Not even going to offer me a drink first?”

He thought her mouth twitched. Then she got up, strode to the small kitchen, and clattered around, boiling water and whipping up two mugs of black coffee from the can of instant stuff that some summer vacationer had left behind. “Cream?” she asked, almost politely. “Sugar?”

“Gods, no. I take it straight.”

One of her eyebrows cocked, in near perfect imitation of his own habit. She gave it a final stir, then returned and handed a mug to him, her eyes flicking to the stump of his left wrist. He briefly thought that he might have surprised curiosity and pity in that flinty green gaze, but he accepted the coffee and took a deep, bracing slug. The windows were already fogging up, giving him the not disagreeable sensation that they were floating in their own cocoon, far away from the rest of the world. He wanted to ask where David was, but didn’t know if she’d let him speak the name. Couldn’t know what was behind this sudden jailbreak, and was afraid that if he pushed it too far, she’d take him straight back. Captain Hook never tempered his words for anyone, but here, with her, Killian Jones was hesitant, almost afraid.

“Where should I even begin?” he said, when the silence had become nearly alive. “Likely you still want my head, and I can’t say you’re wrong for it.”

Emma sipped her own coffee, face stony. “Just talk.”

He leaned back. “Very well.”

And so, talk he did. He told her everything he could think of: his capture and exportation to Neverland, losing his hand at the blade of Pan (he glimpsed deep distress on her face, and hurried on) his long, feverish exile in the ruins of the _Roger,_ his recovery and attempted escape, going slowly mad, sailing in endless circles, until at last Smee came and took him away. Here was where things got tricky. He didn’t tell her about the mermaids’ curse, or Cora, or Home Office – made it sound as if it was merely a lucky coincidence that he happened to shimmy up a beanstalk and find a world-navigating compass. He couldn’t tell how much she believed, if she really thought that he had been off in some alternate magical realm, or if he was throwing mounds of shit at the wall in an attempt to see how much of it stuck. Her face, recovered from its moment of agony at the mention of Pan – of Henry – was smooth and imperturbable.

At last, he started to go hoarse, and stopped, coughing. He downed the last of his now-lukewarm coffee, trying to catch her eye. “Lass?”

Emma was quiet. At the bare minimum, she hadn’t rushed to accuse him of flagrantly lying to her, which he took as a hopeful sign. But she had set aside her own mug, and her hands were clenched into fists on her lap. The fire crackled, throwing shadows long and strange and twisted.

“Lass?” he ventured again. “Emma?”

She looked up. “So what you’re trying to tell me. . .” Her voice sounded thick, choked, almost cracking. “You’d have actually come back for me if you could?”

“Isn’t that bloody obvious?” He barked a hollow laugh. “Emma. . . if you believe nothing else that I’ve told you, believe this. I have barely lived since the moment I lost you. I’ve become what I never wanted to be again, what I never hoped for, all the worst parts of me, the ruin and the wreckage and the darkness. It’s my fault. I’ve fallen. I’ve failed. I’ve hurt you, and I’ve betrayed you, and I don’t deserve another chance. I won’t even ask you for one. It’s just that if you’re going to tell me to go, I wanted you to know why.”

Her shoulders shook. “I. . .” she whispered. “I just stopped believing that any hope could ever find me, that it would ever stop hurting, that it would ever be easier, that I would ever have anything. . .”

“Emma.” At last, with a soft, gentle click, he felt his heart break.

She looked up at him, the tears in her eyes shining in the firelight. “Killian.” It seemed to be the only word she could manage, torn from her like she’d been stabbed in the gut.

There was one final moment where they stared at each other, frozen, and then, at once, they moved. They lurched to their feet, staggered across the cabin floor, and collided halfway, clawing at each other, his arms going around her so hard that he heard the breath leave her, as hers clutched him back just as hard and just as strong, as he brought his good hand up to her face, his thumb stroking her cheek as he fell into her eyes and drowned. And then, before the dream could end, before she could come to her senses and push him away, he kissed her.

It absolutely destroyed him. He couldn’t breathe. He could barely stand. He had missed her so badly that it was like a physical pain – the scent of her hair, the taste of sunshine on her mouth, the way she trembled faintly, then jerked him closer, her fist bunched in the lapel of his long black leather jacket, her lips opening, her body enmeshed with his. He had never more savagely rued the lack of his left hand, would have fought any monster and paid any price to have it back, to touch her, hold her with both. As if in a dream he remembered when he had finally kissed her on that night in London, when they’d let themselves go and slipped away.  This was like it, but a hundred times and a hundred more, an end and a beginning. _I love you. I love you._

He barely remembered getting her against the wall, but they must have arrived there at some point, for her back was up against it, her legs tangling around his waist, as he worshiped her face and throat and neck with kisses, under the jaw, at the pulse point, at the collarbone, between her breasts as he fumbled the button of her shirt away. She made no move to stop him, small whimpering noises issuing from her parted lips, as her hand caressed his dark hair and the back of his neck, across his shoulders, as if barely believing what it found. As if once upon another time, they had known each other perfectly, and there was still some small secret sweet part of them that did. It was unbearable. It was grief and glory and sheer, stars-blazing madness.

“Emma,” he mumbled again, a prayer, an incantation, unable to stop now, terrified that she would. But she kept pulling him closer as violently as if their lives depended on it – which, for all he knew, they very well might. Mouths open and wet and gasping, as his hand slid down her back and beneath her shirt, curving around the warm flesh of her side, up across the smooth swell of her breasts, not knowing what he was doing except that he’d lifted her off her feet and was carrying her down the hall to the bedroom, whereupon he kicked the door in.

It was much darker and colder here, away from the heat of the fire, but they soon rendered that entirely irrelevant. Killian’s heart had turned so fragile that he could feel it trembling in his chest, a coin someone had flicked with a thumb and sent spinning. They crashed down together on the quilts, shedding clothes haphazardly, unwilling to stop touching long enough to do it properly, until there was nothing left, him half on top of her and then her half on top of him, rolling, wrestling, hitting each other, until Emma whispered his name in a voice that made it sound like a curse. But he kissed it from her lips and hoisted her up, so hard that it hurt, as she straddled him like some dark firelit goddess, hair casting shifting shadows on her alabaster skin, taking him inside her a slick wet inch at first and then all at once, as if she could no longer stand it.

He swore out loud and wrapped his arms around her, whirled them around, and bore her down beneath him, as her spine arched and he slid so deep into her warm wet heat that he never wanted to surface, as he drowned again. There beneath the long eaves of eternity and death, as the snow fell and fell and fell, he took her with tenderness and thoroughness and care, as neither of them said a word, as when he lost himself in her, he lost his mind as well.

_I love you._

_I love you._

_I’m sorry._

* * *

Greg Mendel stepped stealthily out of the hospital and into the vicious, gusting night, the eye-watering wind making him squint and pull his hood tighter. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be out; the nurses still thought he was much more fragile than he was, and would be certain to report to the sheriff if they thought he was up to anything squirrelly. But with the weather like this, most of them had gone home early, leaving only a skeleton staff, and it hadn’t been all that hard to sneak past them. He’d just have to get back before they noticed he was gone.

Fine. Better him than Tamara, who still had a broken ankle and wasn’t up for clandestine nighttime missions. He started to walk quickly, as much to keep himself warm as in the interest of time. The little boy – David, he thought his name was, David Swan – hadn’t even known Greg was listening. Babbling on happily about some pirate ship he’d seen in the harbor, which everyone else had been quite certain he was inventing, but Greg knew he wasn’t. It was with difficulty that he kept his face straight, pretended that it was just a six-year-old kid letting his imagination run away with him. But no. This might be it. Their ticket out of here. Unless –

There.

Greg stood quite still, gazing down at the harbor. The fog was so thick that it nearly _was_ invisible, but he wasn’t from this horrible cursed place – thank God. The townsfolk’s eyes would skate right over it, but he wasn’t blind. He saw. The two-masted ship, anchored sedately at the quay, looking as out of place as if it had dropped in from Mars. It was rocking gently on the gunmetal-grey water, sails furled, lanterns quenched, ropes glazed in ice. Dark and deserted.

It was. It was his. The _Jolly Roger._

Greg permitted himself a moment of smug triumph, then broke into a jog, descending the maze of wharves and clambering aboard. Seeing that Jones had resumed both his alter ego and his old method of transportation, which decidedly had not been on this side of the dimension last time anyone looked, there had to be something which had permitted him to sail from one realm to another. Tamara had told Greg all about Jones’ real identity, just why they’d kidnapped him, why he would be so useful at going after Gold and seeking to destroy the curse and everything it had created. _Captain Hook, huh?_ Sometimes Greg thought it was funny. But only sometimes.

Still more, Jones must have been certain that nobody would find his ship – at which he was moderately correct. The townspeople couldn’t see it, after all. Therefore, he would have thought that whatever he had aboard was safe. But Greg, Tamara, and the rest of Home Office had waited too long to complete this little job. Tonight. Endgame began tonight. And he would find –

This.

It had to be this.

Greg had been searching the ship from top to bottom – which didn’t take long, it was small, and he had a hunch that what he was looking for would be located in the captain’s cabin anyway. It was. A heavy golden compass with a crystal face, the needle still pointing at the Storybrooke shore like a sniper’s sight. So it guided people here, even through the protective barricade of the Dark Curse? How interesting. How _very, very_ interesting.

Greg pocketed the compass, cast a furtive glance around to make sure that the deck above had not creaked with footsteps, then hurried out. He’d half expected the pirate to come barging to the rescue, but he must be otherwise occupied tonight. Hopefully for a while. Greg didn’t think he’d disturbed anything else, had taken care to make it look as it had when he’d entered, but Hook _was_ a pirate. He’d know, in that special sort of hypocritical outrage that only those who stole from others for a living could possess, that he’d been stolen from.

Greg didn’t slow his pace until, huffing and puffing, he labored up the hospital drive and darted in a side entrance. He took the service stairs, checked for nurses, then dove back into his room, hastily shucking the outerwear and putting back on his hospital gown and bathrobe to make it look as if he hadn’t been anywhere. Then he tiptoed over to his sleeping girlfriend and gently shook her. “Hey, babe,” he whispered. “Hey. Look what I got.”

Tamara’s eyelashes fluttered, then went wide as she stared at the object in his hand. “Is that. . .?”

“You betcha.” Greg’s grin got broader. “The compass. So one of us can sneak out of town tomorrow, make contact with our guy in Boston – James, that’s his name, right? – and he can put out the word to the rest of H.O. They can get the full court press ready. Then they can use a magic bean to travel here, to this world, and we can use the compass to guide them straight to Storybrooke. It’s almost over. I’ll finally find my father.”

“That’s great!” An answering grin, cool and devious, broke out on Tamara’s face. “Yes. You’ll have to do that. As for us. . . well, we were kept under the library. It’s the place where Regina puts things that she doesn’t want found. So. . .”

“So you think. . .” It suddenly hit. “The self-destruct trigger for the curse. It’s gotta be under there too. That’s what the monster’s guarding.”

“Yes,” Tamara breathed. “Has to be.”

“Then we can blow this godforsaken place sky-high and go home? Finally?”

“Yes.” Her eyes held his. “After so long being held captive, I’d say it deserves it.”

“Boy, does it ever. But we can’t just go down there again and start feeling around. We need a way to find the self-destruct faster. And Regina’s not exactly going to roll out the welcome mat.”

“Maybe not.” Tamara shrugged. “But there’s someone else who knows the library. Or rather, she used to. I’m sure there’s a way to get her to remember. Even better, she used to work for us.”

“Ah.” Greg felt it, felt it finally, saw it, knew that now, it was going to happen. “Belle.”

“Yes,” Tamara said for a third time, and smiled. “Belle.”


	33. Chapter 33

Emma woke with warm light on her face, sprawled in the quilts and pleasantly sore in unfamiliar places, smelling of sweat and woodsmoke and something essentially masculine, sex and musk, low and earthy. All the classic symptoms of the morning after, in other words, and she lay very still, deciding that she could enjoy the dream while it lasted. It would fade when she opened her eyes, and she'd be alone in her apartment again as always, David running in to excitedly chivvy her out of bed – was it Thanksgiving? Oh shit, it was. He'd want to watch the Macy's Day Parade and then the football game, and she had to meet up with Mary Margaret and start cooking dinner, remember whatever the hell it was you did to gravy that made it thicken, and try not to otherwise totally embarrass –

"Morning, love."

Emma's insides seized up as horribly as if someone had attempted to feed them to a woodchipper. That voice – it was just part of the illusion, it would vanish as well, though it was clearly one of its more realistic iterations. After all, she had the heavy, dreamy post-coital afterglow, the hair falling loose, the distinct sensation of a hickey on her neck, and –

Emma's eyes flew open. Then she squinted, shielding them against the strong, purifying sunlight slanting through the small cabin's grimy windows. Apparently the storm was over. And standing there in the hot white glow, leaning with as much affected casualness as he could muster on the doorjamb, as if he had nothing better to do than wait for her to wake up. . .

"Morning," Killian Jones said again, sauntering across the ragged carpet and grinning down at her. She had rarely, if ever, seen him look so blazingly happy, so tousled and unconcerned, so utterly at peace. She could sense the particles that he charged in the air, the way he owned the space, the echoes of his body near hers, every moment driving out every hope or dread that this was just a dream. _Real._ He was _real._ Last night had actually happened. Him. Her. Together. At long, so very long last. And now he was standing here, smirking at her.

"You," Emma said, instinctively pulling the covers up.

"Who were you expecting, love? The Spanish Inquisition? Not the most romantic sorts of blokes, I've always thought." He grinned again, his happiness pulsing off him like the sky after a good hard rain, luminescent with color. "Are you hungry?"

"I. . ." Emma blinked. "Is there food?"

"Bit," Killian said, with magnificent nonchalance. "Dried stuff and things, you know, hoarded away in the cupboards. I may or may not have fixed us pancakes. And coffee."

"You. . . made me breakfast in bed?" It might be cliché, but nobody had ever done that for her.

"Technically, I made both of us breakfast in bed. I'm not quite so selfless as all that."

Despite herself, she laughed. "All right, fine. How much snow is there?"

"Quite a bit. Your car's practically buried, and the road hasn't been plowed. Two feet, I'd reckon. Might have trouble getting back to town. Might have to stay here."

It was plain that this prospect delighted him inordinately, and he vanished again, where she heard him clattering down the hall to the kitchen. A considerable degree of banging later, he came sidling awkwardly through the door, trying to balance a breakfast tray on his hip with one hand. "This is a bloody pain in the arse, just so you know," he informed her matter-of-factly. "Don't suppose you'd consider giving me my hook back?"

"Maybe," Emma said, somewhat more flirtatiously than she meant to. "If you behave yourself."

He quirked a dark eyebrow salaciously, then lowered the tray down onto the covers. The plates contained a stack of golden-brown pancakes, drizzled lavishly with syrup and accompanied by two mugs of piping-hot black coffee. She was, in fact, ravenous, having had quite a workout last night, and dug in with an appalling lack of table (bed?) manners. It seemed ridiculous, ridiculously perfect, that they were now sitting here, chowing down, alone together in a snowbound cabin. As if the rest of real life was far, far away. Almost as if within Storybrooke, which existed as a world unto itself, they existed unto their own.

At last, when they'd scraped the last bit of syrup off the plates, swigged down the last drops of coffee, he put the tray on the floor and leaned back, hand and stump behind his head. "Well, lass," he said. His tone had changed from its carefree flirtation, become more serious and hesitant. "I. . . I don't suppose, whenever we do get out of here. . . that I could meet my son?"

Emma tensed. "I don't know about that."

"Why? Love, I know we haven't kissed _and_ made up – just the former – but I swear. . . I _will_ behave myself, just like you asked. I. . ." He swallowed. "I won't even tell him that I'm his father if you like. Just if I got to see him a few moments, talk to him. . ."

"I don't know," Emma said again. She bit her lip. "Killian, I. . ."

"You don't trust me," he said quietly. "You're worried that with temptation so near at hand, I'd decide to have another go at offing Gold, and then David would get caught in the crossfire. You don't think the crocodile would balk at hurting a child."

"Yeah, exactly." Emma couldn't decide if she was annoyed or relieved that he'd read her so clearly. "And until I can be sure that you won't – "

"If you're waiting for me to become perfect before you allow me to meet my son, lass, I'm afraid you're going to be waiting a very long time."

"Just. . . Gold knows, all right? He knew the second he laid eyes on David whose kid he was, and he's already made it perfectly clear that if push comes to shove, he'd have no problem acting on it. Now you've pissed him off even more, and David told me he saw you two about to come to blows in the pawn shop. I appreciate that you were honest with me last night. Seriously, I do. But to just act like these seven years haven't happened, that we still are who we were. . ."

Killian looked momentarily uncomfortable. Then he said, "Emma. . . we don't have to stay here, you know. I still have a post at Oxford, a flat. . . it's liable to be quite dingy, assuming the landlord hasn't rented it out to someone else, but we could fix it up. Make a home. If you and the lad were willing to move to England with me. . . I could support us. We could be a proper family. Far away from Gold and far away from this place."

Emma said nothing. She couldn't deny that she was fiercely tempted; she remembered how she thought that she could be very happy in Oxford. It was a beautiful city, Killian had a real and respectable teaching job there – of course, there would have to be an excuse for his years-long disappearance, but he'd surely come up with something – and it _would_ remove one of her chief objections to allowing him and David to meet. Not to mention the fact that after so long scraping along on slave wages, working her ass off, she didn't object to allowing someone else to be the breadwinner for a change. Raising her son in Oxford's lovely parks and gardens and historic cobbled streets, bells pealing out at twilight and ancient college spires among the shady trees. . . coming home to Killian, going to sleep in his arms every night, waking up beside him every morning. . . it sounded like twice as much a fairytale as this place was.

Killian could apparently see from her face that she was thinking about it. "Well?" he said again, nervously. "And if you wanted. . . you know. . . to make it official. . ."

"Wait." Emma's head snapped up. She felt short of breath. "Are you. . . are you asking me. . ."

She couldn't get out the rest of the sentence, and he glanced away, a flush stealing up his high cheekbones. "I. . . I just. . . there's no one but you, Emma. There never will be anyone else. I'm not going to change my mind. I'm not turning back. You know. . . knew. . . how long I devoted myself to the memory of Milah. And I just thought. . . if you wanted. . ."

"You've been gone for almost seven years, you turn up, I arrest you, you confess, we sleep together, and now you're asking me to marry you?" Emma's laugh sounded unhinged to her ears. "Don't you think we should, you know, get things like an ordinary conversation down first?"

Killian glanced away again, clearly hideously embarrassed. "I was just thinking about what you said. About how you were alone with David, struggling to stay afloat. . . I could offer you a home, Emma. Financial stability, a good place to live, everything you didn't have when I was gone. And love. I don't know if I've said it, but I love you, I love you, I love – "

"Shh." She put her hand to his lips. There was a strange tightness in her chest, halfway between joy and grief, almost close to tears. "Later, all right? Later."

"No!" he said vehemently. "I've done my waiting. All those years, all those nights in Neverland, when I would have given my other hand to see you, to tell you that. You were right. Of course you were right. But now I have you with me, I have you again, and I'm not going to wait a bloody moment more. I love you, Emma Swan. Marry me. Let's take our son and go home."

Emma looked away from him, not sure what expression was showing on her face, as she restlessly toyed with the ratty bedspread. It seemed hypocritical of her to take this tack, after her firmly stated desire to keep Gold, David, and Killian away from each other, but she had to. "The curse. Storybrooke. After why we came here. . . after why _I_ came here. . ." She thought of August's book, of how Graham didn't remember, how it might be her mother and father, cursed, oblivious, closer than they'd ever been and yet so unutterably far. "There's a reason. And I can't just throw away the rest of my life, my responsibilities, my. . . my destiny, to run off with you."

"That's what it would be? Throwing away your life?" His lips had gone grim, the spark dimming in his eyes. "Emma, _please. . ."_

She cut him off. "I've heard what you had to say, all right? It's a generous offer, it's wonderful, but I don't know. This is too soon. I need time."

"I don't understand. What do you want from me? First I was gone, and you hated me for it, now I've come back and I'm trying to make up for lost time and you don't want that either. Emma, please, help me understand – "

"I don't hate you." Far from it. "I was hurt. I was angry. Alone, heartbroken. That's not the same as hating you. But you have to see, I can't turn off that part of me overnight. I can't just blissfully reunite with you and live happily ever after. You've changed, Killian, and so have I. We have to work with that."

"Then how?" He rose suddenly from the bed, his warm weight leaving her side, as he stood to his full height, good hand clenching into a fist. There was a cutting, bitter tone to his voice, pleading and desperation and confusion and grief. "You want to be 'just friends?' I can't do that, Emma. I can never just be your friend. I can never look at you without wanting you, wanting all of you, as my wife and the mother of my child and my lover and my partner and my soul. I'm sorry if that's too bloody frightening for you, but I can't turn off that part of me either, ever – "

"Calm down." She pulled the covers up again. "If you think yelling at me – "

"If you think ignoring me – "

Their voices clashed in midair like sabers, clanged horribly, and fell just as horribly silent. They stared at each other for a long moment, both striving to regain their control and shaken by its lapse, and he inhaled sharply through his nose. "I'll go dig the car out. Bathroom's down the hall if you want to shower, it may be possible to get hot water but I'm not sure. I'll clear this up." Swooping up the breakfast dishes, he balanced them awkwardly once more and stalked out.

Emma sat watching him go. There was a sick, unpleasant knot in her stomach, where just minutes ago there had been uncomplicated happiness, and she didn't know what to say or do. She wanted to call him back, she wanted to apologize, she wanted to make love to him again and stay in bed with him all day, but she didn't trust herself to do any of it. Couldn't he see that she was trying to deal with him the only way she knew how, was trying to be fair, was trying to think of herself and her son's best interests? It wasn't as if she never wanted David to know his father. Wanted it more than anything, in fact. But if Gold caught wind of it. . . if Killian fell back to the dark side that was patently ready and willing if he slipped up again. . .

Emma rubbed her temples, trying to dislodge the rapidly forming headache, then threw aside the quilts and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She gathered up her discarded clothes and padded down the narrow hall to the bathroom, which was about the size of a closet and illuminated only by a fizzing, spitting bulb. After about ten minutes of running the tap, she gave up on getting it anything more than lukewarm, and stuck her head under to wash her hair, shivering and sputtering. There wasn't really a towel, so she wrung it out and finger-combed the worst snarls, staring at her indistinct reflection in the mirror. _Now what?_

She took her time dressing, and Killian had already finished digging out the Bug by the time she emerged into the cabin's small living room. He cleared his throat on seeing her, and said formally, "You can make it out of here if you're careful. Sun's melting most of the snow on the road, it'll be slushy and slow, but nothing terrible. You'll not want to miss the holiday."

"I. . . yeah. We should probably get going." Her cell phone coverage was patchy at best out here, and she needed to call and check up on her kid; she was sure that he was fine, but Mary Margaret might not appreciate overnight babysitting duty. "Come on."

"When you say that, I assume you're taking me back to jail?" His face was pale and tight.

Emma gaped; she had completely forgotten. She didn't want to, didn't want to at all, but what else was she supposed to do? "I. . . I need to stop by Dark Star Pharmacy on my way back into town," she said at last. "The general store's right next door. If you don't have any money, I can give you some to buy normal clothes. You're not going traipsing around town in that."

He glanced down at his black leather ensemble. "Unusual, isn't it? Striking. But that, alas, does not answer the question as to where I'm going."

Emma hesitated. "You. . . all right. You can come to my place and have Thanksgiving dinner with us. I'm not going to leave you out in the cold under a bridge. My. . . friend, Mary Margaret, she'll be there. . . and David."

His eyes widened as he took this in, and he was briefly struck speechless. She knew she wouldn't have to tell him to mind his manners, thank heavens for small mercies, and quickly added, "We'll play it by ear when it comes to telling him who you are, all right? I'll just say you're a guest over for dinner and leave it at that. If it comes up. . . maybe."

"All right," Killian said immediately. "Whatever you want, lass."

"That's the question, isn't it?" Emma muttered to herself as she led the way out to the Bug. It was reluctant to start the first few times she twisted the key, but persistence and a few choice curses finally encouraged it to sputter to life; she really needed to get it tuned up one of these days. Ruby knew a guy named Billy who worked at the auto body place, who would probably give her a decent discount. But all she required from it currently was that it ran, and they were soon sledding along the access road, taking the curves very slowly to avoid sliding into a tree. Continual mini-avalanches as melting snow cascaded off the branches added that certain _je ne sais quoi_ to the whole proceeding, and both of them let out a long breath when they finally rolled onto the main highway. This had been plowed and salted, and their going got easier into town. A few minutes later, they pulled up in front of the pharmacy.

Emma let out another breath. She had been afraid that it would be closed for Thanksgiving, but she could see the proprietor, Clark, inside; apparently he had decided to stay open for a few hours and profit off the panicked last-minute shoppers. She jerked up the handbrake and turned to Killian. "Do you need a few bucks for clothes?"

"If you don't mind, lass," he admitted, "I'm rather skint right now. Pay you back, of course."

"Yeah, fine." Emma fished around for her wallet, opened it, and gave him five twenties, which ought to be enough to buy him a decent outfit. "Meet you back here in fifteen."

She got out of the car, glanced in every direction shiftily, then headed in. She dearly hoped that Gold hadn't decided to run out and pick up a few things for dinner at this exact moment, but she couldn't really see him having a party. Unless he and Regina had some evil club they went to on occasions like this. Whatever. But the fewer people who saw Killian out and about, the better.

Emma glanced around once more, then proceeded on the walk of shame through the aisles, throwing a few things she didn't need into her basket so she wouldn't be blatantly obvious about buying a box of condoms. She wasn't planning on them being necessary, not really, but, well. . . things of a certain nature tended to happen without her planning them when Killian Jones was involved. It would be stupid not to at least be prepared. Which was why she next had to stroll as casually as possible up to the pharmacy counter, and get the morning-after pill. She and Killian hadn't exactly used protection while they were going at it multiple times last night, and dearly as she loved David, she was not at all ready to embark on motherhood for the second (third?) time in her life. She paid for her things, requested a paper bag, and headed out.

Killian hadn't emerged yet, so she put it in the backseat and pulled out her phone, dialing. After a few rings, Mary Margaret picked up. "Hello?"

"Hey. It's me. I'm, um, sorry about leaving David with you overnight." Emma could feel a flush creeping up her neck; there was plainly only one reason she would have done that, and she hurried on. "But we're actually, well, going to have an extra guest for dinner. Is that all right?"

"A guest?" Mary Margaret said keenly. "Killian?"

"Um. . . yes." Emma's flush heated further. "We've decided to bury the hatchet for now. So you know, if it's all right – "

"Of course it's all right!" Mary Margaret sounded delighted. "I'd love to have him over! Are you – " She lowered her voice. "Are you going to tell – "

"No, no," Emma said hastily. "Not yet. We're just going to introduce him as Mr. Jones, an old friend of mine, okay? It's not the right time."

"All right," Mary Margaret agreed, although she sounded slightly disappointed. "Well, are you two on your way?"

"Yeah, we'll be over in about fifteen or twenty. See you then."

"Okay, see you."

Emma hung up and slipped the phone back into her pocket, then stole one more nervous glance around the sunny, snowy Main Street, paper turkey chains hung up in shop windows and festive wreathes of colored autumn leaves bedecking doors. Still no one suspicious larking around. Just a beautiful holiday late morning, in a little New England town that almost looked normal. That almost looked like home. Like nothing was wrong.

The door of the general store opened, and Killian Jones strode out.

Emma's jaw dropped. She couldn't help it. She had not been at all prepared. He had found an elegant pair of slacks, and a black dress shirt, jacket, and tie, which he had somehow managed to do up with one hand. With his artfully disheveled hair and obnoxiously perfect perma-scruff, he was the image of the dark, debonair scholar she'd first met, as if he hadn't aged a day since then, and he was the most knee-weakeningly, head-turningly handsome man she had ever seen. He had a bag draped casually over his arm, in which he must have stashed his pirate getup, and if anyone had been walking by, they wouldn't have glanced twice. Or rather they would have, but to stare at him, not his clothes. Frankly, Emma was shocked he hadn't caused a traffic accident.

Seeing her gaping, Killian came to a halt and spread his arms. "Well?" he said smugly. "Pass muster, lass?"

"It's – not – bad." Her throat was as dry as chalk. "Come on, let's go."

With another of those infuriating eyebrow quirks, he shrugged and climbed into the passenger seat, and Emma started the Bug. It was only a short drive to her apartment building, and as they sloshed up to her customary parking spot in the back, she noticed that Killian had gone as taut and tense as a guitar string about to break. She found herself wanting to think of something to comfort him, but couldn't. "Hey," she said. "You're going to be okay. Fine. Promise."

"Aye," he said weakly. He exhaled, then unbuckled and reached for something in the bag, tucking it under his arm. "Right. Let's do this, shall we?"

She gave him a soft, understanding smile, then stepped out and led the way into the building, up the stairs to Mary Margaret's apartment. Killian now looked as if he was about to faint, and she slipped a hand under his elbow, forced to admit that she might be reacting the same if it was her long-lost child she was going to meet after six and a half years of not even knowing he existed. (Though that would be quite a bit harder, in her case.) Nonetheless, she knocked.

"Come in!" Mary Margaret called.

Emma took a steadying breath of her own, then opened the door and stepped inside. The apartment was already delightfully warm and full of savory smells, and Santa Claus must have officially rolled past in the Macy's parade to open the holiday season; Mary Margaret had put on Mannheim Steamroller, which was the only kind of Christmas music Emma had ever liked. It made another involuntary smile creep to her lips – she was here, she was having Thanksgiving with something like a real family. Maybe she could do this after all.

"Welcome, welcome!" The apron-clad Mary Margaret put down whatever she had been stirring and hurried over to greet her guests. She kissed Emma quickly on the cheek, then turned to Killian, clearly pretending that she didn't know who he was. "I'm Mary Margaret Blanchard, Emma's neighbor. It's so nice to meet you."

"Killian Jones," he said, then coughed, clearing his throat. "Here, these are for you." He removed the package from beneath his arm, revealing it to be a bouquet of autumn flowers, tied with a gold ribbon. "Thought they'd. . . they'd be nice for the table."

"They're _perfect!"_ Mary Margaret exclaimed, winking at Emma. "We're so glad you could join us. The more, the merrier, right?"

"Sure, aye." Killian's attention was only half on her. He was staring across the room at the small, dark-haired boy happily playing with several toys Emma was quite sure he hadn't had before; it looked as if Mary Margaret had taken him to the store and told him to pick out what he wanted. "And. . . that's. . .?"

Emma had to clear her throat herself. It still felt thick as she spoke. "David?" she called. "Hey, buddy, come over here and meet Mr. Jones, all right? He's a. . . a friend of mine."

David looked up, then sprang to his feet, round-eyed. "Oh gosh! It's him! You're the guy I saw at Mr. Gold's shop the other day!"

Emma tensed, and saw Killian do likewise, faint tremors running through him from head to toe as David trotted over. "Hi, Mom," he said, hugging her around the waist, then turned to Killian and solemnly stuck out his hand, trying to look suave and adult. "How do you do, Mr. Jones?"

"F-fine, lad." Killian looked as if he had been struck by lightning. His eyes were riveted to his son, taking in every detail, every trace, and Emma saw Mary Margaret watching them avidly as she cut the flowers and put them in a vase. "I – you're – so you're how old, now?"

"Almost seven," David said proudly. "In May. I like to play baseball and I'm in first grade. I'm really good at English and history, but not so much at math."

"Dear God," Emma heard Killian whisper under his breath, his hand making an involuntary motion as if to cross himself. He had to close his eyes, hard, then open them and smile at David, who was looking rather worried. "That's – quite nice. I'm. . . I'm rather partial to those subjects myself. Used to teach them, actually. At college. That's where I met your – met Emma."

"Really?" David looked fascinated. "That's cool! But why don't you like Mr. Gold?"

Leave it to small children to march up to bulls and take them firmly by the horns "That's. . . adult stuff, lad. Story for another day. How – how about you show me what you've got, over there?"

David looked surprised, but obligingly led Killian over to show him the castle he was building out of Legos. As they occupied themselves, Emma slid over to Mary Margaret and threw herself rather too enthusiastically into helping her cook. When David vanished for a bathroom break, Killian sank onto the sofa, looking pale and stunned. "Christ. He's. . . he's just like me."

Mary Margaret eyed him sympathetically as she stirred the stuffing mix. "Are you going to be staying in Storybrooke?"

"I – I don't know." Killian shot a wary glance at Emma. "It's quite a delicate situation. Haven't really decided all that much."

Mary Margaret looked as if she was about to say something else, but at that moment David reappeared, and all three adults started guiltily to attention. Clearly heedless of the tension, he made straight for his fabulous new friend again, and they continued to chat until Killian glanced up guiltily. "I could, er, help you ladies with supper if you'd like?"

"No, you're doing fine keeping him out of our hair, trust me." Emma basted the bird and carried it toward the oven.

Killian looked patently relieved, and she could tell he hadn't wanted to waste a single moment with his son. She bent only half an ear to the conversation as she and Mary Margaret continued to work, but then went stiff. David, all innocence, had eyed Killian interestedly and asked, "How'd you lose your hand, Mr. Jones?"

"David!" Emma hissed. "You do _not_ just – !"

"No, lad, it's all right," Killian reassured him. "Natural for you to be curious. If you come here, I'll tell you a secret, aye?"

David squirted up eagerly. "Yeah?"

Emma saw Killian shudder again at the nearness of the little boy, how fiercely he must ache to put his arms around him and pull him close, to breathe the scent of him, to hold him close and never let him go. He swallowed visibly, but managed to keep his composure. "You know," he told David, in a stage whisper. "As a matter of fact, Peter Pan lopped it off."

"Peter _Pan. . .?"_ David's mouth dropped open. There was dead silence. Then, nearly overcome with this information, he gasped, "Oh _gosh._ That – that means. . . you – you're _Captain Hook!"_

There were tears in Killian's eyes as he smiled. "It's our secret, remember?"

"Oh my gosh." David kept staring. "Oh gosh! That – is – _awesome!"_

Killian made a small, choked noise, bending over and having to take several moments before he straightened up, and Emma's heart went out to him. David, meanwhile, was in transports of delight. "Oh wow! I _love_ Peter Pan! It's my favoritest favorite, and I always knew it was really real! But Hook was mean and scary, and you're not. I bet you were sad about losing your hand and leaving Neverland, and that made you nicer, right?"

"Aye," Killian croaked. "Something like that, lad."

"I _knew_ it!" David crowed, getting up to skip triumphantly around the living room. He was overflowing with excitement for the rest of the afternoon, and dragged Killian outside for a snowball fight, from which they both returned soaking wet, red-cheeked, breathless, and looking as if they had never been so happy in their lives. By the time they'd dried off and made themselves presentable, it was time to eat, and everything smelled delicious as the women laid it out on the table. Mary Margaret asked Killian if he'd like to say grace, and clearly as shocked as he was pleased, he obliged. Then they began to carve up and eat.

Emma kept having to resist the urge to pinch herself as she looked around at them. Here together. Like a family. A home. So happy, so achingly happy that it felt like a mortal wound in her chest. She wanted to bottle it, to hold onto it forever, and she knew at once that she was more terrified of losing it than she'd ever been of anything in her life. This was too dangerous, this was too much. But how did she make it stop now? How could she protect herself? She was no longer sure that she could, and that was even worse.

After supper, everyone had to let it settle before Mary Margaret dished up the pumpkin pie, and the adults chatted after David had been excused to watch the football game. Mary Margaret was clearly dying to know the details, but to her credit, she didn't pry, and they managed to keep it to topics of general interest. After dessert, the tryptophan was kicking in, and they were all yawning as they cleared the table and started to wash up. And then, while she was up to her elbows in soapy water, Emma's cell phone rang.

She rolled her eyes. "Just one sec, guys. Let me get that."

Extricating herself from the sink and hastily drying off, she picked it up from the counter and saw that it was Graham. That was surprising. Had some teenager boozed up on celebratory beer gone out and crashed his car in the snow? Shit. But duty beckoned.

She picked up. "Emma."

A very long pause, as she listened. A small frown started between her brows and drew them closer and closer together until they were nearly locked. "Oh," she said. "What the hell? Yeah. Of course. No. No, we have to. Give me a minute to change and get my badge and gun, and then I'll meet you there. Okay. Yep. See you soon. Bye."

Mary Margaret and Killian glanced up with identical expressions of concern. "What was that all about?"

"I'm really sorry, but I've got to head out. You know how we found those two people under the library? Seems like that's not quite the extent of it. Graham and I have to go check it out."

Killian's expression tightened when she said Graham's name. He didn't look at all pleased. "Well, of course," he said stiffly. "If _Humbert's_ the one summoning you. . ."

"Hey." Emma pointed at him. "Jealousy does not look good on you, buddy. He's my boss and this is my job. Not to mention. . ." She glanced over to ensure that David was still distracted. "Graham says he got a tip that someone else is down under there. That it's a woman. A woman you know pretty damn well. Having shot her in front of her lover's face."

There was a pause. Killian's face went very still, as if he was wrestling very hard with something inside himself. _"Belle?"_

Mary Margaret, who was putting dishes away on the other side of the kitchen, peeked over.

"Nothing," Emma told her hastily, then lowered her voice, turning back to Killian. "Yes. He thinks it's Belle. And I don't know about you, but I will be _damned_ if I give Gold another reason to hold a grudge against us. If it _is_ her, I have to save her or die trying, and if you do _anything_ to screw it up. . ."

"I won't," he said coldly. "Much though it may surprise you, I _am_ capable of rational thought on occasion. I quite agree that it would be most advisable to get a leg up on the wretched reptile for once. Put him in our debt."

"No," Emma said, quietly and very angrily. "This isn't about your little power play with Gold. This is about doing the right thing. If Graham and I do get Belle out of there, and I fully intend to do so, she continues to be completely off-limits. You keep saying you want to change for me, Killian. All right. Fine. Let's see how much you can."

He flinched, but she was already stepping away. To Mary Margaret she said, "I'm so sorry, but I'm going to have to leave David with you again tonight. I'm going to run up to my place and change, and then head out. I have no idea when I'll be back."

"That's all right," Mary Margaret said. "We'll manage."

"You're such a lifesaver. I don't know what on earth I'd do without you." Emma blew out a breath, went to give her son a quick hug, and then, feeling Killian's eyes on her back like lasers, turned to him. "You can go where you like, but take care. Rent a room at Granny's or something. Just don't sashay around town while Belle's in danger, or it'll look really bad."

He looked as if he wanted to fire something sarcastic back, but swallowed it down and nodded. There were other words she wanted to say to him, other things she wanted to tell him, but she was in a hurry, and there would be other times, other places. So they exchanged a terse nod, eyes lingering on each other's. Then Emma took one final look around the apartment, and stepped out, shut the door behind her, and went.

* * *

After that awkward end to the evening, there really wasn't much point in Killian loitering about. He'd have stayed far later, just to scrape all the time with his son that he could, but it would have looked strange, and Mary Margaret wasn't the sort of lass who'd want to be caught with an attractive rakehell such as himself in close proximity. So he bid her a polite good night, bent down to David and told him to keep out of trouble, and almost felt sick with his desire to snatch the lad up and hug him. He barely managed to get out of the door and head down the dark steps beyond. He barely managed not to turn and run back.

He retrieved his things from the Bug, then started to walk. It wasn't snowing, but the night was clear, calm, and bitterly cold. He supposed he'd go back down to his ship, where he felt the safest; besides, he had no money to pay for a room. His thoughts kept drifting to Emma, to David, to everything that had happened in the extremely eventful past twenty-four hours. He had been Killian, completely and perfectly Killian, and yet as he trudged down to the harbor, he felt it peeling away again, leaving the dark hard shell of Hook beneath. He could not stop dwelling on the fact that Emma had rushed away at Graham bloody Humbert's beck and call to rescue the crocodile's woman. He meant to keep his word and not interfere, knowing that he was on the very shreds of his last chance, but it still made him feel sour and sick.

He reached the docks at last, and walked silently to the end, onto the dark, deserted _Roger._ He went below to his cabin and shut the door. All his joy had evaporated, leaving only a leaden weight in his stomach. So what was he supposed to do, skulk about Storybrooke until Emma let him tell his son that he was his, dodging out of sight if Gold looked over, waiting for her to –

Preoccupied with his dark thoughts as he was, it didn't occur to Killian at first. But the sensation became stronger, and then stronger, until he glanced up and frowned. He couldn't be sure, but he had the distinct feeling that the place had been tampered with. That something, something very important, was missing.

His heart clenched. He started to search, turning things upside down, ransacking chests and shelves. Who had been here? Who had done this? Gold? Must have been. The bastard was the only one who could see the ship. Killian would wring his bloody _neck._ What on earth was he –

No.

Wait.

Killian caught up short, staring at the cluttered desk. It suddenly hit him just what was missing, and it made him feel a thousand times worse. The golden compass that had navigated him here from the Enchanted Forest. He'd just left it here like an idiot, not thinking to need it anymore – not thinking that someone else very well might. Someone had been on his ship. Someone had stolen it.

The missing compass. Belle. The library. Emma and Graham called away all of a sudden.

Killian stood frozen for a moment more, then shrugged on his heavy black leather overcoat and slid as many daggers as he could find into the sleeves. His sword was at the sheriff's station, his hook was with Emma, and he couldn't go unarmed. He should never have left Mary Margaret's, and he only prayed he could get back in time. His adrenaline was screaming as he lit a lantern and bolted up to the deck, jumping off the _Roger_ and full-out sprinting back to shore. He tore up the snowy, silent streets like a madman, swearing under his breath, panic lacerating the edges of his vision and making his heart race sickeningly. _Bloody hell, don't let me be too late._

His breath was stabbing like a hot blade by the time he finally reached the quiet street. He took the stairs three or four at once, and blasted into Mary Margaret's apartment without knocking.

For a split second, he thought everything was all right after all, and he was going to have some serious explaining to do as to why he had just crashed in here like a lunatic. Then he saw her feet sticking out from behind the kitchen island. She wasn't moving.

Killian wasn't sure if he was swearing or praying as he lurched over to her. She was facedown, unconscious, a slow trickle of red seeping through her short black hair. He put his good hand to her neck, found a pulse, and carefully rolled her over. Her eyelids were fluttering; she was coming around, dazed and confused. She stared up at him as if not quite sure who he was, then frowned. "Kil – ?"

"Never mind that," he said harshly. "Who was it? _Who?_ "

"I don't – " She sat up slowly, wincing and touching the bump on her skull. "I – I was finishing the cleanup, there was a knock on the door, they. . ."

" _WHO?"_ he screamed.

She flinched. "I don't know. I'd never seen them before. A man and a woman. The man was tall and going bald, the woman was black, she had a walking boot and long hair. . . they. . ."

Killian almost shook her. _"They what?"_

"They said they knew Emma and wanted to wish her a happy Thanksgiving." Mary Margaret looked miserable. "Then the woman went over to David and. . . and the man came over and. . . he must have knocked me out. I don't remember anything else."

 _Oh no. Oh, no._ Everything was falling into horrifying place. It _was_ them. Greg Mendel and his girlfriend Tamara, the terrible twosome. They had stolen the compass, they'd called Emma and Graham away on some false pretext, and then they'd arrived here and taken David. It was a trap, it was all a trap. They must be quite sure that Emma and Graham weren't going to return from wherever they'd sent them, set it up to get the two sheriffs tidily out of the way, and. . .

Every nerve in Killian's body was screaming. Right now, he had to make a choice, and if he got it wrong, his life would be over. He could go after his son, or he could go after Emma. But he could not go after both. And Mary Margaret couldn't leave Storybrooke. Not with the curse.

Killian rocked back on his heels, trying to fight the urge to tear this entire place down with his bare hand. That wasn't going to help, but he had not been so close to losing control in a very long time. If he left Emma behind in her hour of need, if he abandoned her again. . . how could he ever forgive himself? But his son, kidnapped by those bloody bastards, with God knew what in mind. . . Home Office, the curse of the mermaids. . . Greg and Tamara _worked_ for Home Office, they'd gotten free, they had the compass, they could guide the rest of them here. . .

Killian's terror was screaming through him so viciously that he could almost hear it. So, then. It had come to this. Numbly, he rocked to his feet.

"Where are you going?" Mary Margaret clutched his arm. "Do you know – "

"Yes," Killian said. He had only one choice. He saw that now. He had to. "I know who it was."


	34. Chapter 34

The snow-covered library tower loomed dark and unwelcoming, icicles the size of swords daggering down the clock face, when Emma and Graham pulled up. They shot out either side of the police cruiser, hands on guns as they performed a quick recon, but nothing was crashed, exploded, imprisoned, incinerated, attacked, or assassinated, which meant that if there was trouble, it was happening inside. _Fuck. I was afraid of that._ Nonetheless, she wasn't interested in being out here later than she had to – wanted to find out what was going on, deal with it, and maybe get back in time for a final slice of pumpkin pie before bed. Not to mention, Emma also didn't want to stick Mary Margaret with overnight David-sitting duty twice in a row. She was a neighbor, not a nanny.

Blowing a chilly silver breath between her teeth, Emma followed Graham into the shadow of the front porch, where he was frowning at the door. The chain holding it shut was gone, and the latch looked as if it might have been forced. Graham shone his flashlight through, then shrugged, muttered, "Well, here goes nothing," and shoved it open.

"Police!" Emma bellowed, holding up her badge. She still couldn't see anything or anyone, and there was a crawling feeling on the back of her neck. If somebody was trapped in the basement, why did the _outside_ look as if there had been a struggle? And why had this tip been called in on Thanksgiving night – or had it been some kind of elaborate double-jointed trap to start with, had they been hoping that everyone would be too befuddled by turkey and cake to –

"Oh, thank God you're here!"

Emma jumped about a foot, swiveling and training her gun on the corner, as an extremely disheveled-looking Greg Mendel came stumbling out. He appeared to have been lurking near the dusty bookshelves in the very back, and was dressed for braving the elements: hat, overcoat, scarf, jeans, gloves, and boots. To say this was a suspicious turn of events for someone who had been, so far as she knew, bedridden in the hospital for the last several days was to state the least.

"You." Emma didn't lower her gun. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Greg looked abashed, like a schoolboy busted smoking behind the dumpsters. "I'm sorry. I just – well, I know it looks bad, but I swear, I really did hear something down there, and I thought I'd just – I didn't think anyone else – "

"Cut the crap. Tell me what you're up to, and I better believe it. Now."

"Emma?" Graham looked aghast. "It was him who called in the tip, he's not – "

Emma paid no attention. "So," she said to Greg, low and levelly. "Talk."

"I. . . all right." He flushed. "You caught me. I'm not as weak as it looked like. But with Regina lurking around. . . I didn't want to put her on her guard, you know? My name isn't really Greg Mendel. I got adopted by the Mendel family when I was orphaned, and I'd always been good at science, so you know. . . Greg, it's kind of an in-joke, see? But my name, my birth name, isn't that. It's Owen. Owen Flynn. And I'm here to find someone important."

Emma frowned, remembering what Tamara had told her in the hospital, how they'd come looking for one Kurt Flynn, Greg – Owen's – father. So far, her lie detector concurred with the story, although it had that same sense of something not being altogether right. "Orphaned?"

"Yeah." Greg glanced at her earnestly. "Tamara might have told you, but. . . my mom died, and then I lost my dad, when we stumbled into this crazy place and he never came out. I was what, eight? But I never gave up looking for a way back. And tonight, it's Thanksgiving and I thought everyone would be out of the way. It would be a perfect time to come look. Because Regina was holding us captive down under here, and I just thought. . ."

"You thought your dad might be here as well," Emma completed. Despite herself, she felt a faint pinprick of sympathy. She of anyone could identify with an orphan searching desperately for their parents, and she consented to lower the gun a few inches. "But if so, it would have been at least what, twenty, twenty-five years? If he _is_ down there, I'm not really sure you want to see."

"Yes. Yes, I do." Greg set his jaw stubbornly. "And I swear, when I got here, I heard something shouting. Someone. So I did the right thing and called the cops right away, see? I'm not the bad guy. I don't want you to think that about me. I don't want anyone else to have to go through what Tamara and I did, and if it _is_ Lacey. . . we worked with her once, you know? I feel a sense of responsibility. She doesn't deserve to be down there."

"No, she doesn't. We can agree on that." Emma _had_ thought she'd heard a faint, ghostly shriek ripple up the elevator shaft, and as she had said to Killian back at the apartment, they needed to give Gold absolutely zero further reasons to hold a grudge against them. With that, making a decision, she turned to Graham. "Lower me down. I'll scope it out."

"What – no! I'm not letting you go down there alone!"

"We went over this last time. I handled myself just fine, remember?"

"You also said you thought there was some kind of monster down there," Graham reminded her. "So did Greg and Tamara. I'm not sending you as, I don't know, the appetizer."

"So you'd come along as well and feed the Thing, if there even is a Thing, a freaking Thanksgiving dinner of its very own?" Emma said impatiently. "We're wasting time. Remember, someone needs to crank the elevator, so I designate you the cranker. Now can we – "

"No!" Graham roared, voice echoing in the dim, dingy stacks. "I am _not_ sending you down alone! That is _final!"_

Emma stared at him. "All right, all right, keep your hair on. But who's going to – "

"I can," Greg suggested. "You know. Lower you both down."

"There." Graham turned to Emma, with the air of someone who had just presented a piece of unassailable logic. "He can lower us both down."

She hesitated again. It was hard to put a finger on her reluctance, exactly. Greg's story was true as far as it went, and he and Tamara had certainly seemed more or less genuine in their stated desire to atone for their previous mistakes. But she'd already stretched herself far further than was comfortable in giving Killian a second chance. . . did that mean she had to extend the same courtesy to every random Joe who came along? Was this the touchy-feely shit where she should start seeing the good in people? Nuh-uh. Not likely. And whether or not she had a valid reason for it, she would just feel better if she had someone she trusted on the other end.

The look on Graham's face, however, was not about to allow for this debate. "Come on," he said, striding to the elevator and shoving the heavy doors back. "We've got to help."

Emma bit her lip, looking at him with her usual blend of frustration and fondness. Why was he so damn noble? Yet if he wasn't letting her go down alone, she wasn't letting him go down alone either. And so, against her better judgment, she quashed her misgivings and stepped into the iron cage next to Graham. The grille rolled closed, and the library vanished, as Greg started to wheel them down out of sight, into darkness.

The elevator rattled and bumped down the shaft, rough rock walls gliding past in the uncertain glow of Graham's flashlight. They glanced at each other and smiled nervously, and then, almost unconsciously, he reached for her hand, squeezing it hard.

Emma was surprised and taken aback, but didn't pull away. It was strangely satisfying to know that he was at her side, even if it did engender a confusing flood of emotions that made her feel depressingly like a teenager. It seemed oddly disloyal to hold hands with one guy not even twenty-four hours after screwing another senseless, but she reminded herself that she was a free agent. Killian had no claim on her affection merely by appearing out of thin air for the first time in seven years, and if he got his bloomers in a bunch about her having a life while he was gone, that was his own damn problem. And for all she'd been trying to keep Graham at arm's length by stubbornly reminding him that he was her boss, there was something inside her that didn't want to keep doing it forever. He was never pushy about it, never overt, never obnoxious, would fall over himself apologizing if he uttered anything that sounded remotely like a come-on. But he was there, had always and steadfastly been there, and that, at least, was something she valued in a man. She couldn't say the same for Killian.

After a few more minutes, the cage bumped against the bedrock at the bottom, and the doors grated open. Graham and Emma quickly let go of each other's hands, then proceeded cautiously out, the beam of Graham's flashlight piercing only a few feet through the freezing darkness. Far off, they could hear water dripping. And that was all. Silence. Utter, consuming silence.

"If you see something," Graham whispered, "get behind me, get back and – "

"What? You think I'm gonna faint?" She _was_ going to have to break him of the habit of seeing her as a delicate china doll that needed protecting. "Buddy, if there _is_ something down here, then somebody's monster ass is getting kicked so hard it'll – "

"Shh!" Graham pulled up, eyes darting back and forth. "You hear that?"

Emma cocked her head and strained, but she didn't. "No."

"Could have sworn. . ." Graham kept walking, light sweeping up and down. "Hello?" he called. "Hello? Anyone down here? Anyone? This is the police! You're in no danger! Hello?"

Emma kept close at his side, angling her own flashlight into the crevices and burrows of the rock, the dark passages that led even deeper underground, breathing like the mouth of a great cave. She prided herself on not spooking easily, but this place gave her the creeps. "Lacey?" she hissed. "Belle?"

No answer.

"Kurt?" That was one summons she didn't really want answered. But she had to cover all the bases, and if some hairy madman imprisoned for decades _did_ come shambling out of the darkness, at least it would be a bombshell for the papers. Although Sidney, of course, would never print something that cast his beloved Regina in such a bad light. "Mr. Flynn?"

Still no answer.

Graham stopped again, frown deepening. He seemed to be struggling for words, or struggling against himself, as if some invisible force didn't want him to proceed any further. It was unpleasantly reminiscent of the time someone else had seemed to seize total control of him, and as that had been followed by him making a good-faith attempt to murder her, Emma was immediately on her guard. "Graham?"

"I. . ." He glanced up, face contorted with effort. "I don't think. . ."

"What? You don't think what?"

Whatever he was about to say, however, she never found out. At that moment, there was a distant rattling from behind them, and in Emma's fraught and frazzled state, it took several more to register just what it was. Then it did, and she whirled around, heart in her throat.

"HEY!" She started to sprint back across the dark, slippery rocks, hearing her voice echo eerily and having the even more uncomfortable sensation that something near at hand had heard, was stirring, waking. _"What do you think you're – "_

Too late. When she hurtled around the corner and flung herself at the elevator shaft, the cage was already out of sight, proceeding swiftly up and away. All her swearing, seizing hold of the bars, and shouting did not stop it, didn't change it. Why, _why_ had she let herself be talked into this? She couldn't – she shouldn't – she should have put her foot down, she shouldn't have –

The rattling stopped. Distantly, she heard the heavy doors slamming, sealing off the shaft, and a heavy, smothering silence fell. And then, worse still, the horrifying reality.

Greg was gone. He had lowered them down here and done a bunk.

Emma and Graham were trapped in the darkness with a monster.

* * *

There may have been times in his long life when Killian Jones had run faster, but – with the potential exception of the Tortuga incident – he was currently at a loss to recall any of them. After a terse word to Mary Margaret to inform her that he was off to settle this once and for all, he launched himself down the apartment stairs like a bottle rocket, head spinning furiously with half-baked plans and frantic ideas. Could he take the ship? The _Roger_ would be the fastest, especially with the roads blanketed in snow, but any further than several hundred yards away from shore, he would be on foot, at a grave disadvantage. And the presence of a fully rigged, sails-and-wood two-master, perfectly visible to anyone apart from Storybrooke residents, would provoke awkward questions as well, but that was likewise the least of Killian's worries. He could tell them what was more or less the truth – that he was a deranged historical recreationist out for a lark, sailing about in this authentic replica to do very important research for Oxford University – and likely get them to buy it, or at least decide that he was enough of a crazy academic to discourage further enquiries. That was, if they didn't –

And then, at the foot of the stairs, Killian ran very hard into something – _someone –_ very solid. He stumbled backwards, seeing stars, and a man's voice said, "What the _hell?_ Who are _you?"_

Furious at being so unceremoniously interrupted, Killian prepared to let fly with a scathing retort, or possibly a right hook to the face (his left still being missing) – then glanced up, got a good look, and felt it wither. He knew the man, having briefly met him at a Family Weekend at Boston College nearly nine years ago, and then again at a downtown hospital in far different circumstances. Tall, sandy-haired, blue-eyed, hands planted on his hips, sporting an expression of obnoxiously belligerent moral rectitude. Aye. That would be him. Prince Charming, better known around these parts as David Nolan. Emma's father.

"Get out of the way, will you?" Killian snapped. "I've had nothing untoward to do with your wife, so you can put that thought out of your head. Your daughter – _and_ your grandson – are in terrible danger."

" _What?"_ David looked shocked. "My _who?_ What are you even – Mary Margaret's not my wife, she's just, just. . . a friend, and I want to know what you – "

Oh, hellfire. In the panic of the past few minutes, Killian had completely forgotten about the curse. The fact that even though David Nolan had given him a note and asked him to take care of his daughter – as he and Mary Margaret were preparing to return to Storybrooke with Gold, when Emma was in the hospital for eating the poisoned turnover that caused her to forget everything about who she was, when the jaws of the curse clamped down as tightly as they were originally meant to – said David Nolan now had not the foggiest idea who Killian was, or that they'd met before, or what he wanted. He racked his hand through his hair, trying to decide whether it was worth it, then finally went for broke. "I don't care if you don't remember or not. Emma and David – David junior, that would be – are in danger. Move."

David senior clearly intended to do no such thing. "What are you doing here?" he repeated.

"Trying to leave as fast as I bloody can. You?"

"I was just. . . coming by to wish Mary Margaret happy Thanksgiving."

"All by yourself? After hours? Without whoever you think you're actually married to? Not suspicious at all, mate. And between you and me, the last after-hours visitors she had didn't go over that well. Pair of berks called Greg and Tamara, and now, _if_ you'll excuse me – "

David Nolan, like a particularly bad case of foot fungus, refused to be detached. "Why did you say she – Mary Margaret – was my wife?"

"Look, chum. I've got better bloody things to do than play marriage counselor for you and your oblivious little psyche. I have to – "

But just then, Killian was suddenly the one to cut himself off. Looking over Nolan's shoulder, in search of a suitable object (such as a crowbar) to brain him with if he continued to withhold his compliance, he had instead caught sight of the old brown pickup truck parked outside. Clearly belonging to Nolan, it had snow tires, chains, and a heater, the ideal vehicle for chasing down Greg and Tamara. And he _was_ a pirate, he'd steal it and hotwire it if he had to. But that would waste precious time, and there were more civilized ways of accomplishing it.

With that, Killian turned on the charm. He smiled. "My apologies," he said, offering a genteel bow. "I've been shamefully uncouth, I confess it. But would it be possible, if I were to borrow your truck for a few hours, that you could trot by the library – with or without the lovely Miss Blanchard, I'm the last one to judge for keeping company with a woman you're not married to – and investigate? I have a hunch that our upstanding law enforcement may have encountered a spot of difficulty. You only need to get Emma out, I don't care at all if you leave Humbert down there for good."

"What the – " Nolan looked as if he _had_ been crowbarred over the head, which was doubtless as intelligent as he looked ordinarily. "Emma?"

" _YES! EMMA!"_ Killian had a wild, unreasonable conviction that if he shouted the name enough, it would stir some old corner of Nolan's memory, make him realize what was at stake. "Go get Miss Blanchard if you like, and then _go to the library!_ It's your _daughter_ who's in there, your _child!_ And if you don't _mind,_ it's my _son_ that's gone as well!"

"I don't have a daughter," Nolan whispered, but he looked rattled. "Still, how do I know you'll give the truck back when you're – "

"Mate. I'll buy you a bloody Lamborghini if you want. Just give me the bloody keys."

Whether it was the insane desperation that moved him, or some element of real conviction, David Nolan finally acquiesced. Without a word, he threw the keys at Killian, then ran past him, upstairs toward Mary Margaret's apartment.

Killian did not wait around for the heart-touching reunion. He was already sprinting outside into the night, which was clear and cloudless, stars twinkling like chips of crystal in the deep black sky. Nothing to compare to Neverland, of course, but as the heavenly vista was the only thing to recommend that cursed place, and he never intended to go back if he could possibly help it, he thought he could do without. He threw himself behind the wheel of David's truck, jammed the ignition to life, and lurched off down the street, headlights strafing the deserted town.

His first stop was the sheriff's station. The truck had a manual transmission, which was hell to drive with one hand, and he didn't intend to faff off _completely_ without preparation. He turned into the snowy parking lot, braked, and sprinted up the steps. The door was locked, but that was scarcely an issue. Within a minute he was in, had disabled the alarm system, and was ransacking Graham's file cabinets in search of confiscated evidence.

Praise and glory to whatever impossibly forbearing gods were still on his side, the sword was there. Even better, so was his hook – Emma must have deposited it before she and Humbert headed off. Killian grimly screwed it back into its brace, then buckled his sword around his waist. In all, the recovery mission took less than five minutes. He'd almost been praying to be caught by Emma and her wolf-shagging sidekick, since that would mean they had extricated themselves from their predicament in the library, but there was still no one. Nothing. He shut up the place as tidily as if he had never been there, jumped back into his lawfully purloined truck, and took off.

The roads were slick and icy, but at least there was nobody else on them, and Killian was an expert at getting anything – animal, vegetable, mineral, or mechanical – to do all sorts of things it had never before dreamed of. He stayed in low gear as he rumbled down the empty two-lane highway, eyes straining the dark horizon for any hint of another car. After whatever bastard's trick they had employed to put Emma and Graham out of commission, then knocking out Mary Margaret and snatching young David, Greg and Tamara simply _had_ to have left. There was only one way out of town, so he could be sure he was on their trail for now, but depending on how much of a head start they had. . . _and_ they had the compass, because he'd been such a fool, such a damn fool for leaving it. . .

Killian steadfastly refused to think about what would happen if he couldn't find them. It was not even a possibility he would acknowledge. He hadn't come back this far, after this long, to lose. Not to give up the son he'd only just discovered he had, _or_ his mother. Gods, how he hoped Emma would understand. That if he didn't come back, that he'd gone down fighting trying to get David back to her. . .

He had to think, though. Had to focus. Anything, any clue that might tell him where Greg and Tamara were planning to go. Back in the Enchanted Forest, during his audience with Mordred, the bastard had bragged about having a well-placed plant in American law enforcement, someone working for Home Office who'd been reporting constantly on Killian's circumstances, enabling them to arrange that little trap with Mr. Smee and the bean. What else had Mordred said? _He was a hard sell, but we eventually brought him around. His former lover did some excellent work for us as well. Jack Antonsson. I can tell you her name because she's dead._

Well. That was bugger-all to go on. Just knowing that it was someone who'd worked on his case, who'd had a girlfriend named Jack, who'd initially registered an objection but finally given in. Whether because of ultimate conviction or of blackmail was up for debate, but –

Oh.

_Oh._

The solution hit Killian over the head like a bucket of freezing water, so blindingly obvious that he kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner. _Emma_ had been the one working on his case when they'd so fatefully met up again, first at the Renaissance Hotel and then in London, a newly minted agent of the ATF sent to track down miscreants such as himself. And thus, Home Office's mole. . . it wasn't her, but her boss. Old boss, rather. And that meant –

Boston.

Greg and Tamara – with his son in tow – were headed for Boston.

* * *

"Emma! Emma, _stop,_ it's no use!" Graham was still trying vainly to catch hold of her, to restrain her, as she continued to swear and shout and grapple at the bars. "Emma, calm down, we have to think, we have to put our minds to it, we have to – "

"This could have been avoided if you'd just _listened_ to me when I told you I wanted one of us up there!" Emma didn't care if it was fair or not; so far as she could tell, they had just been abandoned down here to slowly freeze or starve or be monstered to death, and she was not at all disposed to be rational. "Now what the hell are we going to do? I don't even have a fucking cell phone on me, and he shut the doors, so it's not like anyone is going to hear us scream. And seeing as this place gets checked once every ten years if we're lucky, they'll find our skeletons down here like, I don't know, some prehistoric people curled up in a cave to die – "

"I'm sorry." Graham looked ashen. "You're right. I should have listened to you. I'm sorry."

"Well, that just does us a fucking lot of good then, doesn't it?" Emma whirled on her heel, breathing hard through her nose. Her adrenaline was roaring, refusing to subside or sit down or wait for any kind of a far-off and not-at-all-certain rescue. "One of us is going to have to try to climb the elevator shaft and see if we can get the doors open at the top. Unless there's another way out of here, through the passages?"

Graham shook his head. "I. . . I don't know. And some of the passages might lead to the town line, and I. . . we can't. . ."

" _You_ can't, you mean. What the hell is even up with that?"

For a moment, he simply stared back at her blankly. Then, in a voice that didn't sound like his own, he said, "Regina. . . she doesn't. . . she doesn't want. . . controls. . . I don't think. . ."

"Graham?" Emma frowned. He didn't look good, and even her anger at him didn't preclude her concern. She put a hand on his cheek, slapping him lightly. "Hey. If we're going to have any chance of getting out of here, we need to work together. Stay with me, buddy."

"No!" Graham insisted, with increasing vehemence. "Regina! She – "

"She what? Controls you? Yeah, I could kind of tell that, but then again, she tries to play with everyone like chess pieces, and I have no doubt that she's weaseled away Greg and Tamara and Greg's dad and everyone else who got in her way, but why are you telling – "

Graham cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.

Emma was so surprised that she could not muster the least resistance. She could only yield for a breathless, bedazzled minor eternity to the sensation of his lips on hers, his fingers curling gently around her as if she was something rare and precious and perfect, as if he was coming up from a deep dive at so very long last. Her hand reached up to cradle the back of his neck, her mouth opening despite herself, close to him, drawing nearer a flickering candle that –

And then, Graham jerked backwards. The look in his eyes would have frightened her, if it hadn't been for the tears running down his cheeks, the expression of pure and transcendent awe as he stared at her. "Emma," he croaked. "Emma. I remember."

"What?" Still disoriented from their closeness, she took a step toward him. "You remember _what?"_

"Everything." He ran a hand down his face. "I remember who I am – who _you_ are. You've come back. I always knew you'd come back. For all of us. For your parents. Emma. . . I've known you for most of my life. From when you were Emma Nolan, until now. And before, back in our world. . . I'm sorry, I did everything for Snow and Charming that I could, but Regina – "

"Shh." Emma put a hand to his mouth. "Graham. . ."

"I remember," he whispered, his fingers threading through the fine blonde hair at the nape of her neck. "The wolf. . . it was _mine,_ I was the Huntsman, I. . ."

"Graham, calm down. Just – just – later, all right? Later."

He was still breathing hard, cheeks flushed. Their gazes remained locked. There was a strange, transcendent edge to the air, as they leaned close once more, eyelashes fluttering, about to kiss again. To hell with explanations and excuses and time, with everything, nothing but the –

Graham's eyes rolled back in his head. He had time only for a brief, confused noise before he dropped like a stone.

"Graham?" Emma, shocked, threw herself to her knees, grabbing him, pulling his head into her lap. "Graham? Graham! Look at me! What's wrong? _Graham!"_

He stared at her hazily, the life already fleeing from his face. His words emerged as if from very far away, from a terrible effort, as if a vise was closing around his chest and crushing it. He tried to raise a hand to touch her cheek, but couldn't. _"I love you."_

And then, just like that, with no rhyme or reason, as she clutched him close in the darkness of the library basement, panic threatening to overtake her, knowing that she was alone now, completely alone, that that little flame of hope had been snuffed out by the flood, he died.

* * *

Killian had driven this route three times before, from Boston to Storybrooke and back. However long it had taken him on any of those occasions, it took half as long this time. Once he got south onto the interstate, he slammed the gas pedal to the floor and did not let up for anything short of an act of God. Boston. Somewhere, anywhere in Boston. They had the compass, they must be intending to bring through the entire lot of Home Office and sic them on Storybrooke. Once out from under the cloaking effect of the curse, Greg and Tamara could make contact with anybody they liked – and Killian himself was going to have to go single-handed against _all_ of them –

Fine. If that was what it took. He had to get David back, or die. Nothing else mattered. If the elder David and Mary Margaret had gone to the library and found Emma – they had to, another thought he could not stand –

It was sometime in the godforsaken wee hours of the morning when the horizon began to be pinpricked with the city lights of Boston and its suburbs. It gave Killian the devil of a turn to see the place again. He had, after all, lived and taught here, and now he was racing in on two wheels, desperate to stop a crime that might have already taken place. _Why didn't I just do away with Tamara when I had the chance?_ Instead he'd listened to her, worked with her, even – how sick the memory made him – attacked Emma on her behalf. _I didn't know it was her, I thought. . ._

Yet that was even worse. At the time, he had not known that Neal Cassidy was who he was. Had seen him in passing at BC, thought he looked faintly familiar, but would never dream of guessing that Baelfire had not only escaped from Neverland, he'd ended up smack dab in the same place. Likewise, Killian had never told Bae his real name; from Milah's death until he arrived in London on Wendy Darling's doorstep, he had introduced himself only as Hook. Hence, if Neal thought that the dapper, charming, mysterious man seemed too reminiscent of a particularly unpleasant time in his past. . . well, the professor had both hands, whereas the pirate only had one, and he would have thought it better to let bygones be bygones. Either convinced himself that he was mistaken, and Professor Killian Jones' resemblance to Captain Hook was just an eerie coincidence, or been determined not to say anything and hope that he was left alone.

 _Think,_ _Killian._ _Think._ He had a bloody doctorate degree, they didn't just hand those out like candy to village idiots. Had to be logical, think critically, sequentially, as if he was just doing more , Home Office could pop through anywhere, but they were likely to be coming from the Enchanted Forest, from the ruined castle on the bay. That meant they'd throw the magic bean into the water. Which meant water on this end. So. . .

The ATF was where Emma had worked, and hence where her boss, Home Office's mole, must work as well. You could see Boston Navy Yard from the ATF offices. He remembered that from when he'd done a brief scope-out of the place – right before Greg and Tamara kidnapped him and foisted him into the back of that bloody U-Haul trailer, in fact. And that was where –

Killian pulled the truck around so fast that he left all the rubber of the tires on the road, and slammed down the accelerator again, shamelessly running a red light and hoping he didn't end up with the police on his tail again for his trouble. But it didn't matter. Nothing did.

He knew where they were going.

* * *

The wintry night sky was just turning the faintest shade of pearlescent grey by the time Killian had parked the truck at the empty Flagship Wharf and was sprinting down the icy docks toward the yard, and the distant, anchored silhouette of the _USS Constitution_. It was suspiciously absent of all the usual security personnel and rigmarole that would be expected for a working U.S. Navy installation – apparently, the head of the ATF and thence Home Office dupe had pulled some strings with his federal buddies to get them to conveniently clear out tonight. It confirmed Killian's suspicions beyond a doubt, and as his footsteps were echoing like gunshots, he slowed to a stealthy walk, hand on his sword. He could see people down toward the end of the pier – and swirling in the cold water, the telltale green vestiges of a closing portal.

 _They're here._ His already overworked heart picked up several more notches. There were four of them, all adults. One he didn't recognize, wearing a dark hood. Then Greg and Tamara, beyond a doubt. And even worse, Cora, looking as unruffled as if she'd just been dancing at a ball. Bloody hell, had she been working for the bastards all along? When he thought of how much time and effort he'd put into that, first in getting her out of jail and then double-crossing her. . . and she had been likely laughing up her lacy sleeve at him the whole time –

Killian pressed himself flat to the wall, not daring to break cover until he caught a glimpse of David. Where was he? _Where?_ Greg and Tamara clearly hadn't gone to the bother of taking him only to chuck him out of the car somewhere on the lonely New England highway. So –

"Well done indeed," Cora was saying, voice carrying on the cold predawn breeze. "I know it's been a bother and an inconvenience for us all, but it's almost done. Stealing the compass from Hook's ship – that _was_ a stroke of brilliance. Now all we have to do is navigate to Storybrooke with it, and take care of our business. You _did_ find the trigger?"

"We think so." That was Greg. "It'll be under the library, we're all but certain. Once the sheriff and the deputy are out of the way, we'll send Belle down to retrieve it. As you said, it will kill everybody who was brought here by the curse, and wipe Storybrooke off the map."

"You sound pleased." Cora could almost heard to be arching a haughty eyebrow.

"Of course I am," Mendel said violently. "That place, that woman, ruined my life, and now I'm finally about to have my revenge."

"Of course. Once we go – "

And then, the unseen, unidentified fourth figure spoke up. "Wait. We're _going_ to Storybrooke? You never said anything about that! You never said anything about killing everybody! If I'd known – if I'd known anything about that – I wouldn't have come near, I never would have – "

"Second thoughts?" Cora again. "You did seem so eager to assist us when we told you that we were going to stop your father from hurting anyone again. Well, Mr. Cassidy. This is precisely what we're doing. I hope you're not backing down now."

Hidden just a few dozen yards up the dock, Killian was quite certain he was about to faint. He could feel his knees going out, latched his hook around a pipe to keep his balance, staring madly at the second man – at _Neal,_ at Baelfire, who was standing apart from the rest, hands shoved in his pockets and shoulders hunched defensively. It was plain that he had been dragged along by duress, or at the very best grudging consent, and wanted nothing more than to run as far away as possible, as fast as possible. _You did seem so eager to assist us when we told you that we were going to stop your father from hurting anyone again._ But how – gods, _how –_

"I said," Neal repeated stubbornly. "I don't want to go to Storybrooke. And if you try to make me, it'll be a very, very big mistake. For you."

Cora considered him. Then she said sweetly, "Well then. Perhaps you don't have to. We have a special delivery to make, and perhaps you'll consent to act as courier. Mr. Mendel – if you would be so good?"

Killian saw Greg stepping out of sight, and every muscle in his body turned to stone. Now, it must be now. Especially when, a few moments later, Greg reappeared, leading a confused, shivering, and clearly very upset young David Swan, who was glancing around apprehensively at all the unfamiliar adults. "Please," he was saying. "Please, Mr. Mendel, I don't want to go, I want to go home. I want my mom, please. I don't like you, you're bad, I don't – "

"Now, now, sweetheart." Cora smiled. "It's not like that at all. You're very lucky. You get to go to Neverland tonight. The _real_ Neverland, where Pan's waiting for you. He wants you very much, you see, and we're going to give you to him."

David's jaw dropped. There was a split second while he tried to take it in, and in that moment, to complete and utter hell with secrecy or lies or silence or anything, Killian Jones acted.

" _Get away from my son, you bastards!"_ He ripped his sword clear of the scabbard and threw himself down the dock at a dead run, only barely having the time to enjoy the looks of total shock on every face. Greg was running to head him off, and Killian swung his sword back – he'd kill them all if he had to, every one of them, no loss whatsoever and –

"Tamara, dear," Cora said, as if asking the other woman to swat a particularly vexatious fly. "Go ahead and get that for us, will you?"

"With pleasure." Tamara stepped forward and pulled something from her belt. While Killian was still spinning toward her, fighting off Greg, she pointed it at him and pulled the trigger.

He tried instinctively to duck, but it wasn't a gun. No bullet caught him in the shoulder. Instead, he was thrown ten feet backwards in a howl of crackling blue energy, sword flying out of his hand, body jerking and writhing out of his control as paralyzing shocks cascaded through him from head to toe. Tamara kept the modified Taser aimed mercilessly at him until he was almost foaming at the mouth, convulsing, hook banging against the dock, completely incapacitated.

"Very nice," Cora said, peering with mild approval at the results. "I may have to look into acquiring one of those. And now – " David's wrist clamped in one hand, she made an elegant gesture with the other, and a glimmering magical bean appeared in her palm. "Let's get on with it, shall we?"

"You won't. . ." Steam billowed from Killian's singed jacket, his lungs heaving and charring with every breath. "Take. . . my son. . ."

David gaped over his shoulder. "Mr. Jones? Captain _Hook? D. . ._ _Dad?"_

" _Dad?"_ everyone present repeated incredulously. Particularly Cora, who looked as if the irony was simply too sweet for words. Then she shrugged, said, "Family is a curse, Captain, take it from me," and threw the bean. _"Neverland!"_

A whirling green portal opened up in the cold dark water of Boston Navy Yard at once, humming and spitting and spinning. David yelled and jerked free of Cora, fighting like a little wildcat, like his father's son, but she merely made another gesture, and he was wrapped about tightly with invisible bonds. Then she shoved, and he stumbled backwards, fell from the deck – and vanished down the emerald-green maelstrom, out of sight, off the face of the very earth.

" _DAVID!"_ Killian struggled to roll himself to all fours, blind with terror, never knowing anything like it, seeing his son gone in front of his eyes, down to Neverland – _to Neverland –_ the mermaids' curse, Pan, that fey and dark and dangerous and terrible place – because of him, because of him, _because of him –_

Tamara casually pointed the Taser at him again and unleashed another burst, and Killian collapsed. Then, just as the portal was starting to close, Cora made a gesture, and Neal was thrust violently backwards off the pier, splashing into the water as the magic gulped at him greedily.

Neal shouted desperately, hanging onto the mooring and trying to avoid being sucked down after David. Killian was still trying to crawl, and for a moment, their eyes locked dead onto each other's. In the other man's face, Killian could see nothing but the teenage boy he had taken onto the _Roger,_ concealed and shielded, been so desperate to adopt, to raise him as his own, to make a family with him. He could not, _must not,_ let these bastards take both his sons from him, and, gasping and swearing with agony, he tried to force his malfunctioning body forward. "Bae. . ." he croaked. "Hang on, Bae, I'll get you, lad, I'll help you, I'll protect. . ."

But it was not the teenager who looked back at him. It was the grown man, and his face was almost unrecognizable, twisted with anger and hate, remembering as well as Killian did the night that the pirate captain had sold him out to the Lost Ones. When everything had come apart, after Bae had confronted him on the deck of the _Roger_ with the drawing of Milah, had blamed him for tearing his family apart. After the last shreds of Killian had vanished for good and all, and there was only Hook.

"I know. . . very well. . . what kind of help. . . _you give,"_ Neal Cassidy spat, and let go.


	35. Chapter 35

It wasn't the monster in the darkness that was struggling to climb the elevator shaft, rough wet rock slipping under her fingers, back wedged against the wall as she tried to inch up, but couldn't get enough leverage. It wasn't the monster in the darkness that was hunting her, prowling closer and closer, waiting to devour her if she fell. It wasn't – or was it? – the monster in the darkness that had killed Graham, taken his life between thumb and forefinger and snuffed it out like a waning moon. Was it down there still? Was it coming to take her too? Or was it just her? Was she the only monster down here, the only forgotten prisoner?

Emma barely realized or cared that she was crying; she simply didn't have time for it. She redistributed her weight, trying again to work out the ascent, but it was probably a good hundred feet straight up and the walls, being smoothed to allow passage of the elevator car, were conspicuously lacking in handholds or crevices. And even if she did get up. . . a crashing weight settled into her stomach as she realized that the car itself was blocking her in. There was no way to move it, circumvent it, unlatch it, or crawl through it. Her only faint, frantic hope was that Mary Margaret would notice she had been gone too long, and come to the library to investigate. But what if something, some _one,_ had gone after Mary Margaret as well? Greg hadn't just lowered them down this hellpit and left them to die for shits and giggles. There was some kind of Batman-villain-caliber evil plan afoot, and there was absolutely dick-all she could do about it.

Gasping, Emma dropped back down to the ground, hands scraped and bleeding. She felt utterly powerless, helpless, trapped, abandoned, and the sensation was so overwhelming, calling out so many dark and desperate memories, that she clutched her knees, rocking back and forth as she tried to avoid descending into a full-blown panic attack. Were you supposed to hold your breath? Were you not supposed to hold your breath? You probably weren't supposed to claw off your own face. Graham's body lay a few yards away, eyes staring off into nothing, and it made her feel worse that she couldn't stand to look at him. She was making a faint, whimpering, animal sound over and over, without her volition or control, and she wanted to throw up but couldn't even bring herself to do that. With flight having been so emphatically shut down, she was also failing at fight, and after that, it was clearly one easy slide off the cliff into crazytown. Or should she try to find her way out, deeper into the passages? What if the monster _was_ there? What if the town line _would_ kill her?

 _I remember,_ Graham had said. _I remember everything._ And then, moments later, dropped dead out of the blue, just like that. What if the curse was worse than she had ever thought? What if remembering meant dying? Was it something to do with her? Had she missed her chance to save them, or did saving only mean losing? Taking away anything she dared to care for?

Emma stood up. Her legs felt weak and her chest was tight, a sensation like an electric shock fizzing unevenly in her veins. She had no idea what she was going to do – walk into the darkness and take her fucking chances, probably – when, from somewhere far above, she heard the distinctive sound of the elevator starting to descend.

Her entire body seized up. Somebody _was_ coming, and the only reason they would be doing that was to check that everybody who was supposed to be dead, was. There might be a slender chance that she could blast her way out of this, but it wasn't exactly the smart money. Still, like everything, she'd go down fighting. Thumbing open the magazine of her gun, she checked that she had a round chambered, then hoisted it and clicked off the safety. In an eventful life spent chasing down crooks and felons and thieves, whether at the ATF or as a bail bondsman, she had never before shot to kill. _There's a first time for everything._

The bumping and scraping sounds were getting closer. The elevator door grated open.

Emma threw herself out from behind her cover, dropped to a knee, and fired.

The sound was like an explosion, spraying rock chips, and was followed by a decidedly feminine scream. A decidedly _familiar_ scream. And then – impossibly – Emma peered through the gloom and saw none other than Mary Margaret Blanchard cowering against the far wall, staring around madly for the source of the gunshot that had just taken out a chunk of stone three feet to her left.

Emma's heart just about stopped on the spot. _"What the – "_ Fingers fumbling, horrified by what she had almost done, she slammed back on the safety and thrust the Magnum into its holster. "Mary Margaret! What are you doing here? Did they send you down too? What's – what's – "

"Emma?" Mary Margaret straightened up, abjectly relieved. "Oh my God! I thought – "

"I thought so too." Emma's hands were still shaking. If she hadn't missed so badly. . . no, she couldn't think that. "I. . . it's a trap, you shouldn't be here. Something. . . something already. . ." Unable to complete the sentence, she pointed at Graham.

Mary Margaret let loose a short scream and clapped both hands over her mouth, staring at the sheriff's lifeless body. "Oh my God," she said again, weakly. "I don't blame you for being trigger-happy. What. . . what _happened?"_

"I don't know." Emma tried to swallow, but couldn't. "One moment he was fine, the next. . . he just. . . he just. . ."

Mary Margaret looked horrified a moment longer, then shook her head briskly, displaying a steeliness and savoir-faire that Emma wouldn't have expected in the quiet, mild-mannered schoolteacher. "All right. We need to get you out of here. David's at the top, he – "

"David? Is he all right? I'm sorry, I didn't want to leave you with him again, and I thought – "

"Oh. No. I mean. . . I mean David Nolan. My. . . friend." Mary Margaret's pale cheeks flushed. "We came to the library, after. . . Emma, there's something I need to tell you. It's bad."

Emma uttered a hollow, broken laugh. "I'm not really sure how this can get any worse."

"It. . . it can." Mary Margaret looked wretched. "Your David, your son. . . oh, Emma, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Two people came by my apartment, about half an hour after you left. And they. . ." She pushed aside her black bangs to reveal a discolored bruise on her forehead, and the dried blood matting in her hair. "They knocked me out and they. . ."

In that moment, Emma could actually hear her world falling apart, whistling and crashing like a bomb. Everything was horribly sticky and slow and unreal. "They. What."

"They took him." Mary Margaret's voice was a whisper. "I don't know where. Killian found me, he said he knew who it was, and he ran off right away to go after them. He must have met David – Nolan, that is – because David came up to my place and said he'd loaned his truck to a strange man in black and he was upset and wanted us to go to the library after you, so. . . I'm so sorry, I'm not making any sense, this is just so awful and I – "

"Killian?" Emma repeated stupidly. "Killian. . . went after my kid? And told you to come here?"

"As far as I know." Mary Margaret put an arm around Emma's shoulders. "He was very upset. He took David's truck and left immediately."

Emma felt the faintest easing in the giant block of ice that had become permanently lodged in her stomach. Felt as if she'd taken a breath for the first time since Graham collapsed. She opened her mouth, trying to say something, but only shook her head. "Come on. I still haven't found out what the hell is actually down here, if there's anything, and now really isn't the time."

Between the two of them, Emma and Mary Margaret managed to carry Graham into the elevator, and Mary Margaret called up to David. He must have started cranking as if he was being paid for it, because they rose swiftly toward the surface, and sure enough, when the heavy iron doors rolled back, they could see David bent over the wheel, panting. Mary Margaret ran out into his arms, and apparently oblivious or uncaring of the fact that Emma was standing right the fuck there and their love affair was supposed to be on the DL, they kissed for a long moment. Then they pulled apart, blushing and coughing, and the revelation that the body of the Storybrooke sheriff was contained within the elevator cage proved every bit as dramatic as expected.

There was so much to do after that, but it was only a blur in Emma's head. Nothing felt real. They called the hospital and the coroner and the county investigative unit and the morgue, and Graham was taken away. Emma was just meeting the detectives outside the library, apologizing for dragging them out at an ungodly hour on a holiday night, when there was a screech of tires, and Regina's black Mercedes-Benz pulled up almost on the curb. The mayor herself leapt out a moment later, white-faced and disheveled. "Oh my God! Graham – I heard something about Graham, tell me it isn't – let me through, I need to – "

Emma waved the detectives inside and turned back to Regina. "I'm very sorry, Madam Mayor, but this is an active crime scene. And seeing as _yes,_ it's true what you heard about Graham, I'm the acting sheriff. I can't let you in."

Regina stared at her. "You're not sending those people _down_ there? Whatever killed Graham is still on the loose! It's too dangerous!"

"I'm not going to argue this with – " Emma began, and then caught herself. She drew herself up and stared coolly down her nose at the other woman. "You know," she said. "It's funny how you just assume he was murdered. Because I don't remember saying anything about that."

"What are you talking about?" Others would have flushed, but Regina only went paler. "I'm not the one trying to put more people in harm's way! Get them out of there! Nobody is going down into that basement again until we get it thoroughly scanned and checked out. I'll take care of it, I feel a responsibility to the citizens and – "

" _Excuse me."_ Emma's voice cracked like a whip. "You chose a _really bad time_ to start your little power trips, Ms. Mills. Because you know what? I think Graham _was_ murdered. By _you."_

"What. . . how dare you!" Regina drew herself up. "I was _nowhere_ near, and if you're suggesting that I would do something like that, I don't know who you think you're dealing with. If you – "

"I know exactly what I'm dealing with." Emma had no hard evidence, nothing but a hunch, but it was currently going haywire. "You don't really look like you were called out of bed. You're fully dressed like you've been somewhere else tonight, you just turn up here and so happen to disapprove of people going down under the library, and right before he died, Graham was trying to tell me something about you. Something like you controlled him. Sound familiar?"

"I'm not going to stand for this." Regina's lips went tight. "If anyone murdered him, Miss Swan, I would be inclined to think it might be you. So then. You really _don't_ know what you're dealing with. How about you take your son and leave for good, before anyone else gets hurt?"

"That sounds awfully familiar. You know, for someone who swears up and down it's only advice for my own good, it's pretty damn easy to mistake it for a threat. I wonder why?" Emma most sorely longed to punch the other woman in the face, to go after her, to scream, to burn, to fall. "Now I repeat, there's _no way_ you're getting in here, and until the recon is finished – "

"If you say so." Regina flashed a grim smile. "But I'm going to get a court order to stop people from going into a building that's condemned and dangerous, and I'm going to have it by morning. So you might want to think about that."

Emma stared at her, utterly incredulous, then whirled away. No matter if she would happily have stayed and sparred with Regina all night, something else had just occurred to her. If Killian _had_ left town in pursuit of David junior, and then found him (please _God_ let him find him) he wouldn't be able to get back into Storybrooke on his own. Unless he wasn't planning to come back at all, didn't give a shit. . . some dark animal part of her brain screamed at her that he was gone, he'd left her like Neal, like Graham, he'd left her and she would never see him again and –

As hot white static fizzed and snapped at her vision and her head began to reel, she realized that she was on the verge of having another panic attack, and forced down deep, nauseous breaths until she regained command of herself. Turning away from Regina, who now had a cordon of inspectors to deal with anyway, Emma ducked through the library doors and out into the chilly darkness, where she found David and Mary Margaret directing traffic for the growing throng of onlookers in pajamas straggling out of their houses to stare. They were the only ones left she trusted at all, and she had to. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed David's arm. "Hey."

He turned to her in surprise. "Deputy – Sheriff – Swan?"

"I – I need your help." Emma had so rarely uttered those words, so rarely confessed to it, that she had to take a moment to process. "My son was kidnapped, and I understand that you lent my – friend your truck to go after him. But they can't find their way back into Storybrooke on their own, and I'm the only one who can leave. I need to go out past the town limits and wait for them. I need you to handle things on this end."

David and Mary Margaret blinked, as clearly it had never occurred to them either to leave or that there might be something remarkable about her doing so. But they both nodded gamely. "We'll do whatever we can."

"Great." Emma took off her deputy badge and pinned on Graham's sheriff badge instead. Then she handed it to David. "Congratulations on your promotion, Deputy Nolan."

He grinned. "This is awesome. I always wanted to be the good cop."

For a moment, Emma just stared at him, searching out every detail that might remind her of herself, or of _her_ David. _Good classic name. Never goes out of style. Yeah. My dad's._ She had never in her life more powerfully hungered to know if it was true, was recklessly and desperately hoping it was, but she was terrified of asking him to remember. Not if it meant he might die as well. If that was true, if that was the curse, if that was the darkest and foulest thing anyone could contrive. . . she had to break it. She didn't care at what cost or what effort. She had to.

David frowned. "What? Do I have something on my face?"

With a terrible effort, Emma pulled her gaze away. "No. Thanks, both of you. I'll be back soon, I promise."

The alternative was too terrible to even consider.

* * *

Dawn was breaking far off and distant through the black trees, a striking palette of rose-pink light and white snow, by the time Emma parked just outside the "Welcome to Storybrooke" sign. Since she knew the town was there, she could still see it sparkling in the valley bottom below, but she'd had enough experience by now to know that to anyone else – including Killian – it would look only like an empty, rural road to nowhere. Nervous adrenaline coursed through her body, making her leg jump, her fingers tap, her throat dry, as she sat running the heat and staring through the woods. Where was he? How long would it take? He had David, didn't he? He had to. Who had taken her son? _Who?_

Emma's pent-up kinetic energy was too much for her to stay sitting, so, despite the gusting, icy wind, she got out of the cruiser and began to pace. Her hair snapped and tossed in her face, her cheeks red with cold, as she tried to remember any prayers she might have learned back in her Catholic-school days at BC. It was a surprise even to her, however, to realize that the reason she was here was because she trusted Killian to get her son – _their_ son – back. She must be. Otherwise, why would she be standing out here alone on a snowy road at dawn on the morning after Thanksgiving, almost sick with hope and fear?

The sun continued to inch higher through the dripping trees. Her stomach twisted in half with hunger, her eyes were hot and hollow, and it felt as if a mortar had blown a few rounds through her chest. Her memories still swam with the sight of Graham collapsing. She felt as if she was poised at the very edge of an abyss, as if everything about her life, about her future, had waged on this decision to throw the dice and wait for him, for Killian. To try it. Trust.

It was getting lighter and lighter now. Midmorning.

He wasn't here. He wasn't coming. They weren't coming.

Emma leaned back against the police car with a moan. Her son. David. God. David. Her child, her blood, her boy. David Eric Swan. How little he'd been when they put him in her arms. How little he was still now. Not even seven. Not even. Would she see him on the news one day far in the future, trailing behind his kidnapper? Would they put him on a milk carton? Would she ever even know what had happened to him, or just spend every day wondering, looking for his face in a crowd? Would she become one of those crusading moms who cracked cold cases and appeared on true crime TV shows, or would she just have to face the fact that he was lost, a lost boy just like his brother, like –

And then at that moment, as cold waves of terror began to break over her with a vengeance, she caught a glimpse of another vehicle far down the road, taking the slippery curves with a disregard that bordered on the suicidal. It roared closer, briefly out of sight through a copse of trees, and then closer. A truck. An old brown pickup, with a familiar dark silhouette behind the wheel. But it was only – she didn't see –

The truck blasted through a final snowbank and slewed to a halt, spraying slush, as Emma jumped back, convinced that she was about to be run over. Then the driver's side door burst open, and Killian Jones, in long black leather jacket, sword, and hook, jumped out.

They stared at each other for one long lunatic instant, neither of them quite able to believe their eyes. Then Killian gave her an exhausted, brokenhearted smile, took one step toward her, and collapsed.

" _Killian!"_ Emma's scream split the quiet morning. Every other thought in her head was gone but her terror. _It's happening again, it happened again, it was me, it was me, did I murder Graham after all, was it me?_ She knew completely and beyond all doubt that if she lost Killian in the same way just hours later, she would lose her mind. She couldn't. He had come back. Again. _He had come back_. And now, wonderfully, terribly, forever, she could not let him go.

She reached him the next moment and scooped him frantically into her arms, cradling his head in the crook of her elbow, her free hand fumbling beneath his jacket to his chest, feeling for his heart. His eyelids looked almost translucent, bruised, and his face was scraped and battered and sunken. As she held him, something shocked her, and she glanced down with a small yelp to see blue sparks of energy still spitting through his clothes. He convulsed silently, gasping.

"Killian. Killian, look at me." She cupped his face in her free hand and shook him, trying to get his pain-clouded blue eyes to focus on hers. "Killian! Oh my God. Killian! No! Stay with me! Come on! Come on, please!"

"Emma. . ." He shuddered as he tried to find enough breath to speak. "Emma. . . I'm sorry. . . I couldn't. . . I couldn't get David. . . they took him. . . Emma, please forgive me, I tried. . ."

"What happened?" She gripped him tighter. "Who took him?"

"Greg. Tamara." He turned aside with a small noise of agony as more crackles of lightning circuited through him. "Emma, I should have told you. . . when I crossed here. . . I didn't do it alone. There were others. Other people."

And with that, the story spilled out of him. She didn't understand half of it, these references to evil witches and beanstalks and giants and more, but she did understand that her hunch about Greg and Tamara had been dead on the money. They _were_ working for some kind of shady organization with unforeseen powers behind them, and they hadn't given up a shred of their previous convictions. She was weirdly elated about that, but when Killian told her the identity of their operative on this side, she was flattened. _James? James George?_ She'd always trusted her boss. Thought that he was sincere and hardworking and fair. Had he already been working for these Home Office people when she was tracking down Killian in Boston and London? How much had he told them? How much had he been responsible for? To face the fact that yet again, someone she'd put her stock in had betrayed her was numbing, a dull and terrible litany.

When Killian's hoarse voice finally fell silent, Emma continued to sit there, holding him. She didn't know what to say or feel. She wanted to be angry that he'd kept so much from her, but it was matched with a realization that she'd been guarding just as much as herself from him. _Neither of us have any idea how to do this. We're no good._ Groping blindly along the same path in search of the same destination, but having no idea where or what or how. Just making it up. Naked to the storm.

"David?" she said at last. Her son's name felt strange and heavy on her tongue, almost sharp. She was dreading the answer, but had to ask the question. "So. . . do you know where. . . David?"

Killian's eyes met hers. Very quietly, he said, "Would you believe me if I told you, lass?"

She hesitated, then nodded.

"Neverland," Killian said in a rush. "He's in bloody Neverland. Second star to the right, never grow old, the whole bit, but it's nothing like whatever stories you think you know. Cora chucked him down a portal, and. . . someone else fell in with him. I tried to stop it, I tried with everything I had, I swear, but Tamara and her wretched sodding Taser. . ."

Emma shivered. She had unpleasantly clear memories of her own acquaintance with the business end of that thing. But the other thing he had said was more important. _"Neverland?_ But there's the shadow there, there's. . ." _Henry._ It had been David's dream of him that had started this all. Had Pan, at last, finally found what he was looking for?

Killian coughed, a sound as if he'd been kicked in the ribs, and grimacing, tried to sit up. "Aye. And that's not the worst of it. They're coming. Cora and the terrible twosome. They have the compass. The curse won't keep them out. I played dead until they left, then raced like hellfire and damnation to get back here before they did, to warn you. We may have another hour, two at mos. We have to find a way to prepare for it. Have to fight."

Emma stared at him, unable to process what she was hearing. Then reaction kicked in, and she pulled him close again with both hands, their breath steaming silver in the air. As he was still looking at her as a man had never looked at her, as she had to take the chance, as she had to find out, as she had to know, as she knew, she held his head fiercely and kissed him even harder.

Killian made a startled noise through his nose, but it did not signify any disagreement at all; his hooked arm wrapped tight around her back, and they fell backwards onto the icy pavement together, which was fully as uncomfortable as it sounded. But neither of them cared. They kissed until they couldn't breathe, until they could barely think, and then again. Finally, gasping and disheveled and dirty, they pulled apart and clambered unsteadily to their feet.

Emma watched him like a hawk. Now. Would it be now? If he was going to die – if he would collapse the same as Graham – if _she_ was the murderer, if _she_ was the curse –

He didn't. He wiped his mouth with his good hand and smiled helplessly at her. "I'm at your side, Emma," he breathed. "Now and forever. Can you trust that?"

She hesitated one last time. Could feel sunlight shining inside her, to her dark and shut-away secret places, through her walls, through her pain, to places it hadn't touched in years. It wanted to hold her back, as it always did, but now when her son needed her, when her family needed her, when _she_ needed her – she had to be stronger than that. And she was Emma Swan. She was.

"All right," she whispered to him, this man she loved. "I trust you."

He gazed back at her, and she could tell that he knew exactly what it meant. With the utmost tenderness, he touched her cheek. "Well then," he said. "I'll not lie to you. This is going to be bloody awful and awkward and everything else you can think of. But there's only one way we can do this. Only one who can help us, and it's going to damn well cost us through the nose."

Emma stared at him blankly. Then comprehension hit, and her jaw dropped.

"No," she said. "Him?"

"Aye," Killian confirmed grimly. _"Him."_

* * *

"Oh, look," said Robert Gold, staring in apparent befuddlement at the door of his pawn shop. "It opened quite by itself, that's the oddest thing. I surely don't see anyone I desire to speak with. Or anyone at all, actually." He turned ostentatiously back to his polishing.

"Cut it out." Emma moved closer to the counter. "We need your help."

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry. You seem to have mistaken me for somebody who gives a damn. Very embarrassing, really. Now can you locate the exit on your own, or do you require a snappy theme song to hit you in the arse on the way out?"

At that Killian, who was standing in the doorway (having removed his leather jacket and hook so as not to further provoke their target) took an angry step forward. "How about you shut up and listen, _crocodile_. I know you'd throw a bloody party if my son went and died in Neverland, but it's more than that. Home Office is coming, and they'll be here in hours. I heard them with my own ears. They'll destroy everything and everyone they can. And besides. You have a good reason for wanting to help us. A _bloody_ good reason. I daresay it's the same as mine."

Gold stared at him with sleek, urbane, perfectly groomed loathing. "Dost mine eyes deceive me? You are walking in here of your own volition to plead for my assistance? Whatever can be next – lions with lambs and IKEA instructions comprehensible to the general public?"

Killian turned to Emma. "Can I please hit him? Just once?"

" _No!"_ Emma snapped, hastening to run interference. She could feel Killian tense, as if he manifestly did not like having her standing between him and his mortal enemy, but remained where she was. "Gold. You can guess we wouldn't be here unless it was desperately urgent. Neither of you is going to be killing the other, _period,_ or – "

"Or what? You'll throw me in jail?" Gold arched an utterly out-of-fucks eyebrow. "Try to revoke my merchandising license? Just think of all the black market antiques I could be selling."

"No. They're coming here to find and trigger a self-destruct on the curse. Not a happy kind to make it go away and everything back to normal. _Everybody is going to die."_

"The curse," Gold mused. "So you believe now indeed, Miss Swan? And have attached yourself at the hip to this puling wastrel? The fates giveth and taketh away indeed. How can you be so sure that this. . . _individual_ is telling you the truth?"

Emma stiffened her spine. "I trust him."

"Do you?" Gold's eyes glittered. "Despite everything, dearie, I rather like you, so I'll hope for your sake it's not the last thing you ever do. And yet, _how_ are these terrible villains supposed to _find_ the place?"

"The curse won't stop them," Killian growled. "They have the compass."

"Doubtless how you arrived to spoil an otherwise lovely little village, I collect? Passed it along to them when you were done?"

"They _stole it from me_ , you mincing, murderous, malingering mound of – "

"Oh, such as _you_ stole my – "

" _Will both of you please shut up!"_ Emma roared, startling both of them. "Good _lord!_ You can get back to arguing who's done each other more wrong _later._ Gold. . . everything comes with a price. We need you to do this. As a favor. We can pay."

"Oh believe me, dearie. You can't afford what I'd charge for a favor like this. Arm and a leg isn't just a figure of speech. Certainly not in some cases." Gold cut his eyes nastily at Killian's missing hand.

"I only need one to strangle you," Killian snarled, as Emma threw her shoulder sharply into him.

"Dearly as I should like to let you try, if only to teach you a lesson, you are wasting my precious time and energy with your tedious bloodthirst, and I do not care to look on you either right now or ever again. The exit, as I indicated, is that way. Good day."

"Oh no, Rumplestiltskin. You don't get to just walk away. It's your son too, in Neverland. It's not just mine. Didn't see that coming, did you? It's him. It's Bae."

Three-quarters of this sentence made absolutely no sense to Emma, but she saw the way Gold froze absolutely dead in his tracks. The silence was hideous. Then Gold revolved around on the spot and, moving as little of his mouth as humanely possible, said, "What?"

"Bae. Your _son,_ you pathetic cretin. Do I need to make a bloody fucking slide show? He fell down the portal after David, into Neverland. Both of them. Are. There. At Pan's mercy."

Gold opened and shut his mouth. He clearly longed most desperately to contradict this, but couldn't. "How – " he said. "How could – "

"Still think we can't pay?" Killian growled. "Still think there's nothing you want?"

It was the first time Emma had seen Gold so completely discombobulated. She was having a feeling as if she was overlooking or forgetting something very important, but didn't know what, and anything that induced Gold to consider helping them was something that had to be promoted. She held her breath, gaze flicking nervously from one man to the other.

"So," Gold said abruptly. "If we _were_ to make a deal, say. . . if I was to assist you in your venture, and in recovering our respective offspring. . . you might, say, consent to leave forever and never return?"

"It's not as if I'm that bloody eager to stay. I've got a life elsewhere. Did, at least."

"And we all devoutly anticipate you getting back to it. But Miss Swan, now, the savior. . . she'd have to stay behind, of course. She couldn't go with you. You'd have to leave her. For good."

Emma's heart caught in her throat. She glanced fearfully at Killian, wondering just how he'd finesse this. Or was it the terrible price of Gold's help – find her son, lose his father –

"No," Killian said flatly. He reached down and took Emma's hand with his good one, his long, callused fingers closing warm and firm around hers, as he pulled her protectively against him. "That's not going to work. You're not going to play on us and try to pull us apart and set us one against the other. _We – are – a team,_ and that's how you'll deal with us. With me and so with Emma, and with Emma and so with me. Do I make myself _excruciatingly_ clear?"

Gold looked at them, clearly hoping that Emma would break ranks, or give him a hint, or side with him, but all she did was tuck herself more prominently into Killian's side, not budging. Together, they stared the pawnbroker down with enough force to ignite several tons of TNT.

At that, Gold was finally forced to recognize defeat. He sighed. "So, then," he said. "If you're truly prepared to accept my assistance, then here's what you have to do. Back in – our world, shall I now feel free to call it? – I distilled a certain essence. A bit of special help. To save for a rainy day, as it were."

"Well, it's storming like a bitch right now. What is it?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out. Trust me – if you're trusting _him,_ it should be no burden – when I say that I require it to put up a defense around this town that may stop our Home Office intruders from breaking through. Get it, bring it back to me, and we'll discuss matters from there. And as you said, we're on a time limit." Gold consulted one of the numerous old clocks hanging from the walls. "I'd wager you have about an hour, at the most."

"So?" Emma said, adrenaline starting to rev. "You have details about this mysterious mission?"

"Of course."

" _So?_ Where _is_ it – this thing – that we're supposed to get for you hidden?"

"Oh, I think you know." Gold bent down behind the counter and emerged with a long mahogany case, polished and shining. "You'll want this."

"What is it?" Emma stared at it, at a loss.

Gold reached for the clasp, and flipped it open. His grin was faint and shadowed, almost sad. "Your father's sword."

* * *

Ten minutes later, Emma and Killian were pulling up in front of the library – which, thanks to David Nolan's unstinting efforts, had been cleared of almost everyone. Regina was gone, thank God, although wherever she was now likely wasn't any better. In fact, David himself was the only one left, standing vigilantly at attention outside the door and clearly astonished to see them. "You _were_ telling the truth?" he sputtered, staring at Killian.

"Don't need to sound so shocked about it, mate," Killian retorted, sounding miffed. "Your truck's parked downtown, just as I promised." He tossed a keyring. "Here."

David pocketed it, still looking somewhat suspicious, then glanced to Emma. "Are you coming back to take over? What do you want me to do?"

"Funny you should ask." Emma ran a hand through her hair. She had no idea how on earth she was going to do this – return, on no sleep, not even a day since Graham had died in her arms in this very place, where she had seriously thought she would die as well. Only that she had to. "I need to do something. For t-the investigation. I need you to lower both of us down."

"Wait a tick." Killian was glancing from Emma's sheriff badge to David's deputy one, confused. "Not that I object, mind you, but where's Humbert?"

Emma's throat closed. She could not cry now. She couldn't. "He's. . . he's dead."

She was bracing herself for a smart remark, terrified of it, not able to joke about it so soon and so raw, but instead Killian looked completely gobsmacked. _"What?"_

"He. . . we. . . we were down there together and. . . he said he remembered, and he kept talking about Regina, and then he just. . . died. Just collapsed and he was. . . he was gone."

Killian's dark eyebrows drew together sharply. "Talked about Regina, did he?"

"Yes. He said she was controlling him. It didn't make a lot of sense, I don't – "

She had expected him to look confused or scornful, but he looked anything but. His face went still darker. "Is there a place where. . . Regina might keep things she doesn't want found?"

"Yes," David said unexpectedly. "Mary Margaret and I have seen her in the graveyard. There's a Mills family crypt there, and she. . . she goes in and out sometimes."

"Ah." Killian nodded.

"Do you. . ." Emma stared. "Do you think you know what happened?"

"I might have an inkling. Sounds familiar." Killian's face was drawn and tight. "Come on, lass. We're wasting time. Tick tock."

Emma nodded, stepping into the elevator cage with him. The sword Gold had given her was awkwardly slung across her back, but she had her gun, which she trusted a good deal more, and as the door shut, she couldn't help glancing covertly at David. _Your father's sword._ Were they closer than ever to breaking the curse, or closer than ever to destroying everything for good?

Killian put a hand to his belt, and his own sword hanging there, as they began to descend. As the light shut out, as the dark cold air came up to swallow them, as side by side they went down and down. _Breathe. You can. You can. You can._ Emma bit her lip until she tasted blood. Was Graham still down there too, with the spirits of all those prisoners who had never left?

They reached the bottom at last, and stepped out. The air smelled different at once, stranger. Hotter. As if, beyond all doubt, something was waking up. _The monster._ But she was no longer sure what or why or where. If it even existed. If it wasn't her. _The monster in the darkness._

"Stay close, lass," Killian whispered. "It's down here. We're going to have to fight it."

"Fight what?" Emma's voice, despite her best efforts, wavered.

" _Who."_ She could hear his grim smile. Could hear as well, something starting to wake up, to draw closer. Distant, thundering footfalls. All hell unleashed. "The dragon."


	36. Chapter 36

"I'm sorry," Emma said, as the distant sound of falling rocks thundered down the passage, clouds of dust starting to rise like marsh gas. "Did you seriously just say a _dragon?"_

"Didn't say the Tooth Fairy, now did I?" Killian tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword. "Old. . . friend. I can attest that she is most monstrous."

" _She?_ It's a _girl_ dragon now?"

"Terrifying and yes, female witch that can turn into a dragon, to be very precise." Bloody hell, he didn't have time to give her magical bestiary lessons. "And I'd draw that sword if I were you."

"Think I'll stick with the gun, thanks. How do you _know_ so much about this, anyway?"

"I did do a bloody lot of research on the curse, if you'll recall. And trust me, the gun – "

"I don't even know how to use the sword, I'd probably lop my head off. If anyone has to do it, I guess that's what I brought you along for."

It thrilled him that she would, even obliquely and while stubbornly deflecting the rest of his advice, admit that she needed him in any capacity. Their reunion was still too fragile and new, still hot from the forge, something that might crumble as soon as stand, but this was – at least he hoped most desperately – a start. Still, however, neither of them had time to dwell on it. The crashing sounds were coming closer and closer. The darkness was too impenetrable, falling over like a shroud, as Killian and Emma stood shoulder to shoulder, staring in all directions as if their heads were on pivots, he with sword in one hand and her pointing gun with both.

"Where is it?" Emma whispered. "Is it even – "

The rest of her question was cut off as a huge amber eye flicked open behind her, slitted and baleful. Killian had just enough time to shout, _"DUCK!"_ before the dragon reared above them, screaming, great leathery wings accordioning up a furious gust of wind and an equally furious gust of flame exploding from between its jaws. Iridescent scales gleamed witchily, claws raking up furrows of choking dust, and as she threw herself into a somersault across the rocks, Killian heard Emma moan, "Oh, no. No _way._ You have got to be _kidding_ me."

Alas and alack, no. Killian stared up into the monster's face, trying to recollect even a scrap of his legendary savoir-faire. He'd had dealings with the witch in the past – not good ones, precisely, but there had once existed a business relationship. Perhaps they didn't have to be entirely barbaric about this. "Maleficent," he said charmingly. "Love you in earth tones."

Maleficent responded by attempting to turn his own tones into the "scorched beyond all recognition" variety, and was only prevented from stirring success as he dove behind a stone pillar. Clearly, diplomatic negotiations were going to have to move to the aggressive phase, and he took a better grip on his sword, a long breath, and a mental shake. Then he flung himself out from cover, baiting her, trying to draw her away from where he'd seen Emma fall. "Oy! You there! Don't you think that tail makes your arse look big?"

The dragon howled. In any world, in any shape, women never appreciated the intimation that their posterior was outsized, and Killian sprinted, fireballs vaporizing the rocks to either side, as she lumbered after him. Her evil, triangular head oscillated mesmerizingly, as she tried to decide which was the best angle from which to roast him alive. A fascinating contemplation, no doubt, but one which was rudely interrupted. From somewhere behind them, Killian could hear the sharp, popping reports of gunshots as Emma emptied an entire clip into the dragon's hide. At such close range, and with such a large target, she could scarcely miss. Unfortunately, just as he'd warned her, the bullets did less than no good.

"Seriously?" he heard Emma gasp, as Maleficent wheeled around and took aim at her instead. There was nowhere for her to run, he heard her scrambling backwards, running full-out across the rocks, he couldn't get to her with the bulk of the dragon in the way, and then –

" _Emma?"_ Totally heedless of the fire-breathing death machine hard on his heels, he ran frantically to the edge of the rocks. _"Emma, where are – "_

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Maleficent's huge, spiked tail swinging toward him. He tried to get his hook up, or his sword, or anything, but it was too late. It slammed into him, lifting him bodily into thin air. For a moment he hung suspended. Then he plunged.

It was fifteen or twenty feet straight down. He hit the rocks with a groan, catching his right leg beneath him with a blaze of agony, and couldn't get up, couldn't breathe or move to save himself, as the dragon bore down on him. This was it, this was the way all the stories ended, with him becoming a piece of marvelously handsome and very raw steak somewhere under a –

But then, out of nowhere, Emma was there. She planted herself above his fallen body, and drew the sword from its sheath on her back, clutching it in both hands. It was plain that she had no idea what to do with it, just as she'd told him, but that didn't stop her. As Maleficent's head plunged down, going for the kill, Emma hacked madly at the dragon's neck, drawing it off, slashing and cutting as she kept it barely at bay, dodging another gust of flame. In its light, Killian could see that her face was battered and bruised, blood running from a gash above her eye, but she scrambled away across the rocks, leading the beast on a wild dragon chase just long enough for him to wheeze in a pained breath and roll to his feet. Sword in hand, he charged.

Emma turned just in time to see him coming. Side by side once more, they exchanged a split-second glance. And in that, was enough time to decide on their strategy.

"HEY!" Killian, wincing as he put weight on his leg – it definitely felt as if he'd cracked something – ran out at full speed, belting across the rocks, then spun to brace himself and fight Maleficent back with his sword – straight toward Emma, who had to duck again as another blast of fire fried the dark air above her. For some moments there was an utter chaotic confusion of running and fighting and explosions, as Maleficent buzzed back and forth like a demented hornet, unable to decide who she should focus the brunt of her wrath on. Rock exploded, showering burning stone chips everywhere, and the darkness was lit by violent orange gales as Killian and Emma battled in deadly earnest, Killian covering for Emma when her rudimentary sword fighting skills left her open to danger, Emma covering for Killian when his bad leg went out from under him. Both of them were dripping in sweat, breathless, but not daring to take their eyes off the beast. They had vexed it, but were still no closer to bringing it down than –

Maleficent was, at least, getting dizzy. It was hard for her to keep her evil yellow eyes on both of them at once, or fend off one from the back when the other was attacking from the front, and Killian's only hope at this point was that they'd somehow tie her up in knots, the great bloody nuisance. Just like Regina to keep a sodding dragon down here, and just like Rumplestiltskin to pack them off to fight it. It crossed his mind that that might be exactly what the crocodile wanted, sending them off to perish in some godforsaken dungeon, but Bae – he'd told him about Bae, that he was in Neverland, not even the bastard would throw away his own son like that – unless he didn't believe him, thought Killian was just pulling it out of his arse to get him to –

Still no time to dwell on it. Maleficent was coming hard, wounded but angrier for it, and Emma had lost her sword, fingers clawing madly in the dirt. Killian shouted and threw himself in the way, tumbling head over heels – not the most graceful or elaborate entrance he had ever made, but beyond doubt one of the most effective. As he rolled over to see the dragon towering above him, clearly prepared to revenge herself and then some for his impolite remark about her nether aspects, he heard a voice shout, _"HEY!"_

Killian cranked himself painfully over on an elbow just in time to see Emma raise the sword above her head in both hands – apparently, his distraction had allowed her enough time to get it back. And then, the crazy bloody woman, she went and let go of it again. She threw it like a javelin, hard as she could, directly at the vulnerable, armorless underside of the dragon's belly.

Maleficent bellowed in pain as a fiery wound blossomed across her scales, racing outwards like cracks in ice from the place where the sword had lodged. Brighter and brighter and brighter, turning the entire eerie, rocky underworld into something from the pits of hell, as Killian scrambled to his feet and tackled Emma just in time. The explosion deafened him completely, hot ashes pelting his back like strange snow, stinging and burning and bellowing as flames tore apart the darkness. Emma lay completely still beneath him, except for the mad flutter of the pulse he could feel in her throat, close to his, as they lay there, clinging to each other for dear life.

At last, the tumult subsided. Pushing himself cautiously off her, Killian looked around and saw that nothing remained of their foe but a heap of steaming ashes. In the middle, like a phoenix that could not quite get up the gumption to hatch, sat a heavy golden egg, glowing and lambent with heat.

"Is that it?" Emma's voice was croaky as she sat upright, wincing and touching a trickle of blood seeping from beneath her hair. "Is that what Gold wants?"

"I imagine so." Killian moved gingerly toward it, knelt, and picked it up carefully. It was still hot to the touch, but the glow was fading already. "Let's get out of here before she comes back."

Emma stared at the ashes. "But I – I thought we – "

"I seriously doubt we actually killed her, lass. Sorceresses that old and that evil generally don't go down so easily. But you gave her enough of a shock, it looks like, to do the trick for now. You are bloody brilliant. Amazing."

Emma flushed, the color of her cheeks visible even in the dim, smoky, scorched light, as she moved to retrieve the sword. "Dumb luck."

"Call it what you will. Dumb luck's gotten me out of more than one tight corner."

With Killian still shooting wary glances behind them, the two of them hurried across the rocks, clambered back up the cliff they'd tumbled down, and crawled over the edge, Emma reaching back to pull Killian after her. Both of them were coughing and gasping, wiping sweat out of their eyes, as they arrived at the elevator cage and piled in. "Hey!" Emma shouted. "Let's go!"

There was a pause just long enough to shred their nerves, and then the cage lurched into motion. Up and up and up it bumped, slowly, slowly. . . and then, out of nowhere, screeched to a halt. Silence dwelled for one minute, two, three, five. Nothing.

"Hey!" Emma shouted again, banging on the side. "Hey! David! Let's go!"

"David's gone." A voice spoke calmly from the top of the shaft, echoing. "Acting sheriff, you know. Had to run off. Must have forgotten all about you. Sad, isn't it? Here, toss the egg up to me, and I'll start to work on our defense."

Not knowing how much time they had left, perhaps only minutes, Emma readied to toss the golden egg – but then, Killian's hook jerked her arm sharply down. "Oh _no_ you don't," he growled. "As if I don't know precisely what you're thinking, you rotten son of a shit-eating snake. You're going to steal whatever's in here, double-cross us, and scarper. Don't even deny you were going to."

"You have a very suspicious mind, _Captain."_ If it was possible to make what should have been an honorific into the vilest of insults, Gold succeeded spectacularly.

"I've been fighting you for too long. If you want it, you're going to crank us up."

"Me?" Gold looked utterly revolted at the prospect. "Do you really think I – "

"Should have thought of that before you sent Nolan haring off, eh? What _did_ you do, incidentally?"

"Break-in at Regina's house." Gold grinned and waved something at them – a tattered old black velvet top hat. "Stealing this. I don't imagine she'll be all that pleased to discover it's gone, but what can you do? It will certainly put her on her guard to fight whoever's coming through."

"That's all very well and good. Now _get us out of here."_

"What's the magic word, dearie?"

" _Get us out of here or I'll – "_

"Please!" Emma shouted angrily. "Can you _please_ get us out, Gold? Before we all die some ridiculously stupid and preventable death and my son is lost in Neverland forever?"

"All right. I'll accept that. For _your_ sake alone, Miss Swan." With a martyred shrug, Gold vanished, and finally, they heard the wheels and gears start to crank, grating them up the shaft until they reached the top. Killian was tense all over, fingers aching to reach for his sword, but forced himself to think of David, his David, the young lad abandoned and alone in the weird and wild wastelands of the island where you never aged, where the shadow held sway, where all the beauty and all the stars and all the splendor held a dark and unforgiving curse. Thought of the mermaids, how their loveliness likewise masked their lethalness, and how he himself had brought it about. For once, he minded his manners.

Gold, apparently recognizing as such, gave him an extremely sarcastic salute and ostentatiously wiped his brow on the sleeve of his smart suit jacket, as if to demonstrate what a burden it had been hauling them all the way up. Then, with the ratty black hat still tucked under his arm, he beckoned them to follow, and they hurried out. The day, as if portending something wicked this way coming, had clouded over to a dark iron-grey, and snow spat from the frowning clouds.

"You'll consent to drive us, Miss Swan, I'm sure?" Gold helped himself to the passenger seat of the police cruiser, leaving a fuming Killian to crawl into the caged-off back as if he were some sort of bloody small-time thief. "I'll instruct you where we're going. It isn't far."

Emma shot a sideways look at Killian, but got behind the wheel and pulled out. The streets were still icy, requiring her to pay close attention, but she plowed up the hill to the copse of forest that Gold indicated. Everything looked like a Christmas card, trees glazed with icicles and gingerbread cottages buried attractively in white, but they plainly had not come up here for the view. She jerked the brake, and all three clowns piled out, Gold in the lead, as he led them to a small stone wishing well set back among the fallen leaves.

"Miss Swan," he said. "If you please."

Emma hesitated, then put the golden egg on the ground and split it open.

Killian instinctively tensed, expecting that no good whatsoever could come of anything that Gold felt necessary for putting up a defense of Storybrooke. But no smoke monster or shadow or other vile beastie streamed out. It was only a vial containing a glowing purple substance – something that, as he looked at it, made him realize that they might just have made a very colossal mistake.

He took a step forward, intending to say something, but too late. Emma handed the vial to Gold, and he uncapped it, held it poised for a moment over the well, and dumped it in.

The effect was immediate. At first tendrils, then clouds, then rolling gusts of violet smoke began to erupt from the well, choking and billowing as it engulfed the forest, the fallen leaves, Gold, and Killian and Emma, who reflexively clutched onto each other. "Crocodile!" the former bellowed. "The bloody _hell_ are you doing?"

Gold turned and gave them a merry, manic smile. "Just what I promised. A way to shield this town, for the time being, from our Home Office friends. The only way I could. With magic."

 _Magic._ The word felt cold and dark and terrible, like a blow to the stomach. Aye. Killian could see it now. Give his enemy _back_ the ability to become the Dark One? The greatest weapon he possessed, the power that tipped the scales unevenly? As long as Gold lacked magic, he was – more or less – an ordinary man, forced to rely on his wits and wiles and deals to survive and manipulate, but _with_ magic, he was an opponent so terrible that his legend still scarred the lore of countless realms. With magic, he was a monster.

Killian, coming to this conclusion, and realizing that this could only end one way, lunged.

Gold had been waiting for it. He skipped out of the way, hand flaring up, and a pulse of unseen energy knocked Killian back on his heels. Emma was still staring, clearly trying to wrap her head around the speed with which all laws of reality had come undone before her eyes in the space of seconds, and didn't yet comprehend what had happened. She stood motionless, then ripped the sword from its sheath, but couldn't seem to decide what to go after – the well, or Gold.

Killian fought to his feet, snarling, and tried to charge Gold again, but the other man negligently flicked him aside as if swatting a fly. Then the crocodile balanced the tattered black hat on the rim of the well, and began to spin it.

Something old and dark and roaring flew out, as the hat grew many times its size, sucking and whistling and whirling a sinister and shrieking portal into nothingness. Green lightning flashed and crackled around the edges, dancing up Gold's fingers and arms and entire body, pounding Killian in the chest like cannonfire when he tried to break into it. The magic continued to spin and scream, a tornado set to lift off and carry them to Oz, or somewhere even stranger. And then, at the height of its churning, crashing energy, when the abyss at its center was nothing but darkness and more darkness, Gold took a running start and jumped.

Killian shouted. Emma swore. Both of them picked themselves up, still dazed, and ran as hard as they could, but the green lightning crackled out again and tossed them like dolls. Emma was the first to recover her feet and her sword, but then, the lights and sound and magical madness died. The purple smoke continued to roil and spark, a giant cloud of it now engulfing the entire town, but silently. The wishing well was just a wishing well.

The portal was closed.

Gold was gone.

* * *

"I'll kill him!" It was the first thing Emma heard as she stood there, shocked and heartbroken and unable to believe her eyes, trapped and stranded here completely on their own. _"I'll kill him!"_

She remained rooted to the spot. She hadn't really thought Gold was going to keep his word to the bitter end, but the sheer flamboyance and magnitude of his betrayal was a cherry on top of the shit sundae. Instinctively, she rushed forward and picked up the hat, tried to spin it as Gold had, to reopen whatever dark door into the netherwhere he'd just used to make his fuck-you-and-your-little-dog-too villainous exit, but it only sparked feebly a few times and went out. Panicking, she spun around. "Killian? What do I do? There has to be another way! There has to be!"

He had been much slower than her getting to his feet, and his face contorted in pain as he tried to put weight on his right leg. "Lass, I. . . I don't. . ."

"No!" Emma screamed, and threw the ruins of the hat away from her, kicking it into the snow. "He can't just leave us here! He can't just do this!"

Killian's laugh was agonized and sardonic. "You truly didn't know who you were dealing with, did you? You really thought he was going to do this for us from the goodness of his heart? I doubt he even bloody has one. If he does, it's rotten through."

Emma wanted to completely lose her mind, but she had the bare minimum of composure left to realize that this would get her, them, and David absolutely nowhere. Her first reaction in most bad situations was anger, and this was ten thousand times worse, but she forced herself to bridle her temper, to keep herself under brutal control even as the full reality of their predicament set in. "There's. . . _magic_ here now. There has to be another way to Neverland. Has to be!"

"I. . ." The blank terror on Killian's face made her heart turn over. "I don't know that. . ."

And then, he stopped.

"What?" Emma said desperately. _"What?"_

"I've. . . just thought." He raised his hand to his mouth. "There might be a way. . . London, the shadow can get to London, it took me from there in the first place. . ."

Emma felt her stomach turn to lead as the implication sank in. "Oh my God," she said weakly. "So if we can get to London. . . bait it out of hiding, it might come for us?"

Killian nodded.

"Then we have to do that." There was no question in her head. "Oh God, we'll have to get the car, drive down to Boston – what's the quickest flight that can leave, we – "

"Flight? To fuck with a _flight."_ He grimaced. "I've got my ship here. The fastest ship on this realm or any other. We can sail before sunset."

His ship. His pirate ship. Emma felt almost numb with a mixture of disbelief and relief. They could. It could happen. Hope that this noxious purple fog and its attendant magic would keep Home Office out – had Gold actually done anything with it besides stab them in the back, or was that just another lie? – and run like hell. But something even worse occurred to her, and she spun to face him. "The compass, you said something about a compass, that's how they can find Storybrooke. But we don't have it! If we leave now, is there any guarantee we'll ever get back?"

Killian's face was pale and tight. The silence crackled. Then he said, "No, lass. No, I can't guarantee it. But you're the bloody savior. I'd say there's a fair chance."

"A _fair chance?_ That's _all?"_

"This entire venture is a lunatic thing to do, love. You know that. You have to take the risk."

"I just. . ." Emma had never been more torn in her life. She stared down the hill, thinking of David Nolan and Mary Margaret Blanchard. She was now almost sure that they were in fact her parents, that her family might indeed lie buried here, whatever fragment of Emma Nolan could still be retrieved from the rubble of time and space and distance, of ashes and smoke and grief, loss and love and memory. "If we could just take them with us, if we could. . ."

"David and Mary Margaret?" Killian's voice was gentle. "They can't, lass. They can't leave. Not with the curse. It's only you and me. We have to."

"Then I want to break it!" Emma screamed. She spun in circles, desperate for something to hit, to shatter, to take it down, to make it end. "If there's magic now, I should be able to! You're the one who did all the fucking research on this! How do I do it? How? _How?"_

"That's the one thing I don't know. I'm sorry." White-faced, he limped toward her. "But we have to go. We have to find our lad. We can't leave him in Neverland. If we do, we'll lose him forever."

"You're right." Emma's voice cracked, mortifying her. "I guess if the magical shield doesn't work. . . if they do come through. . . David and Mary Margaret need to stay here. And fight."

She resolutely ignored the thought of anything else that could happen, could happen very easily. Something such as Home Office breaking in and taking down everything in its path, at the very moment she finally believed, finally wanted and trusted that she might find her long-lost family. Instead, she strode to Killian and pulled his arm over her shoulders, helping him hobble back to the police cruiser. Then she slammed the door, threw it into gear so hard that the engine whined, and floored it down the hill into town.

Not twenty minutes later, they were running down the docks, Emma still having to support much of Killian's weight, as they reached the ship – holy hell, the real and actual _ship –_ tied up at the end of the quay. She could see the name painted on the bow, and had a moment where she was finally forced, once and for all and unquestioningly, to face the fact that this was true. All of it was true. He _had_ been in Neverland these long years. He hadn't left her because he wanted to, but because it was an old and dark part of him that seductively dragged him in, held him captive, had cost him his hand and his heart and his home. Had cost him her. And though he'd told her that, and though she'd started to believe, she finally understood just how terribly much he'd paid.

It was astonishing to see the transformation that came over Killian when he was stationed before the helm. The commander and captain completely smoothed away the scholar and even the sword-wearing swashbuckler who'd fought a dragon with her under the library. He barked orders in prompt expectation of their fulfillment, and Emma raced around to obey. There was a surprisingly little amount to do to get them ready to make sail; the _Jolly Roger_ seemed capable of taking care of much of it herself. Sails billowed out and were neatly trimmed with halyards, the mooring chain sliding loose, the timbers creaking and the capstan rattling as the anchor was raised. They began to back out of the slip, Killian's face still and intent, utterly consumed.

Emma could feel the cold wind cutting like a knife, but she didn't want to go below, not yet. If this was the last time she was ever going to see Storybrooke, she had to keep it in sight as long as possible, not forget a single detail, etch it on her heart. The purple cloud was still billowing, dissipating across the sky, and she had to trust that it would hold, that it would guard, that the magic would be enough – or if all came to worse, that a far simpler magic would do. The magic of strong arms and stout hearts, of fighting for what you believed in, of holding onto a single shred of good in the world and defending it.

There was a lump in her throat, and her eyes were unaccountably blurry. In all the madness of the last few days, she'd barely had time to take a breath, much less screw her head on straight, and she still didn't know that she was doing the right thing. Only that she had to get David back, no matter the cost. Only that she was here, with Killian, and that she – that both of them – would fight until there was nothing and no one left. And somehow, for the moment – to speak of a simple magic indeed – that was enough.

Emma kept Storybrooke in sight until it was nothing more than a grey smudge on the grey horizon, until it was indistinguishable from cloud or coast. Until the mist passed over it, and she turned away, as gulls called overhead and the ship was accepted by the sea.

* * *

They were well out in the Atlantic by nightfall, wake thrumming white as wind whistled through the lines. It was freezing on deck, but as long as Killian was tending the helm, charting a sure course through waves and water, Emma didn't leave. She assumed that this would be far faster than the average time it would have taken to sail a wooden ship across the pond – she definitely didn't think they had two months to spare. But she could feel the speed in the timbers, the way they almost flew, as Killian consulted a chart he'd draped over the wheel, nothing like any ordinary map Emma had seen before. His leg was now clearly paining him exquisitely, but he stubbornly refused to sit down, or stop, or slow.

At last, however, the cold was punching tears out of her eyes, and full dark had fallen. She couldn't help but keeping a wary eye out for icebergs, as she didn't think this thing had any lifeboats and she wasn't exactly keen on playing out the whole _"I'll never let go, Jack!"_ scene. If the stupid woman had just moved over on the shingle, she could have saved her boyfriend too, not let him slip away into the deep for good, down into the dark water to drown. . .

She shuddered, and Killian glanced up. "It's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, love," he told her. "Go below."

Emma raised an eyebrow at his turn of phrase. "What, and leave you up here by yourself?"

It was plain he was touched by this; he blinked, as if momentarily at a loss for a clever comeback. Then he said, "I've sailed many hundreds of years by myself, lass, in all sorts of weather. I'll keep."

"No. Your lips are blue and you can barely stand upright. Get your stupid magical ship to take care of itself and come into your cabin before your freeze – hey!" Emma smacked at a rope that had shot out seemingly from nowhere and tried to trip her up. "The hell was that about?"

"Well, you called her stupid _and_ an it," Killian said mildly. "My girl's a bit feisty. Of course she'd take offense."

"I wonder where she'd possibly get that from. All right. If your charming and wonderful magical ship would kindly consent to tend herself for a spell, can you come below?"

"That's a bit more like it." Killian let go of the wheel; it held itself in place, a rope lashing around the handle. "I'll not be able to stay away forever, but it'll suffice for a breather, aye."

Emma moved closer and took his weight again, helping him through the trapdoor and down the ladder to the narrow corridor below. There was a door at the end which he showed her through, into the captain's cabin, and she maneuvered him through the tight confines to the bed, where she laid him down with a grunt of effort. "We have to do something about your leg."

"That we do. I've already got one mutilated limb, I need a second like I need a hole in the head, aye?"

"I don't know. I think you could be only improved with one." Emma stroked his dark hair out of his face, hearing the cold wind sigh and moan past the diamonded windows, searching for a way through the cracks, as the _Roger_ rode the heaving winter swells. A few lanterns burned low on the walls, casting shadows, and she took the heavy quilts and pulled them over him, an oddly maternal, protective thing to do. Something came over her then, and before she knew quite what she was doing, she heard herself say, "Killian. . . can I see your stump?"

He tensed. "Why?"

"I. . . was just thinking. About the fact that you were, however long it didn't last, willing to work with him – with Gold. That you're going back to all these places you must never want to see again. It just. . . it can't be easy. I know you've paid a great deal. I just don't know how much."

His eyes kept hers. "Are you really sure you want to see, lass? It's not a pretty sight."

"There's nothing in the world that can squick me out, buddy. I've seen everything."

"No," he said softly. "You haven't." There was no bravado or braggadocio in his voice, and no false humility either. It was simply and honestly telling her that there were all kinds of things and places and people she knew nothing about, and that her experience was merely a drop in the bucket beside his, the far corners and strange comers he must have known in over three hundred years. "But if you really want to, lass. . ."

"Yes," she said firmly. "I do."

Killian hesitated a moment longer, as if very much hoping that she would change her mind. Then he nodded and began to fumble at the leather cuff with his good hand, undoing a fiendishly complicated contraption that slid off his forearm and lay on the bed looking like a torture device that someone had recently murdered. Eyes still on hers, waiting for her to flinch away, he carefully pulled aside the last piece of leather, and bared the stump.

Emma sucked in an involuntary breath. She hoped she hadn't offended him, but it _was_ pretty gnarly; she could tell by the ragged flesh, the scars of removed stitches, and the general amateur look of the thing that it had definitely been a DIY surgery. She remembered him telling her that Pan had taken his hand and he'd had to deal with the aftermath himself, taking refuge in the wrecked _Roger_ while struggling not to die of infection, sunstroke, thirst, blood loss, Lost Boys, or any of the manifold and one other ways in which one could buy the farm in Neverland. Hearing, however, was different from seeing. Looking at the ragged end of the limb, the elegant, callused hand on the other arm and remembering both of them as they'd been before, not wanting to imagine the pain he must have endured in losing it, the agony both mental and physical, trying to hang on, one more hour, one more day, even as they blurred into years and he could barely recall himself, for good or ill. She was rocked by the stark fact of how much they had both changed, how much they had both lost. Without a word, she lifted his stump to her lips and gently kissed the scarred, ruined flesh.

Killian jerked, staring at her in shock. There was a moment so pungent, so charged and depthless and fragile, that Emma was astounded the entire ship didn't catch on fire. Then slowly, as mesmerized as if they were in a trance, in an old dream at the instant before waking, they leaned closer, and closer. The kiss that met in the middle was as shy and chaste as a schoolgirl's.

At least, it started out that way. Their eyes fluttered closed, his good hand stroking her hair, and then he inhaled a sharp breath through his nose and pulled her down onto the bed with him. They rolled over and over, clinging to each other, the kiss deepening into a frantic exploration of lips and teeth and tongue, soft wet noises, gasping breaths, a slow-burning fuse bursting alight, curling close to each other in the half-darkness of the hold, as snow wept at the dark glass among the turbulent sea. He hung onto her for all he was worth, quite certain that nothing less than the bloody apocalypse could make him let go, and even then, he wouldn't. "Emma," he moaned, their faces warm and close and searching, lips still tasting, moving, opening. "Emma, lass. . ."

"Shut up," she mumbled, hand sliding low on his stomach. "Just shut up and kiss me."

"However dearly I would like to, darling. . . we can't be so carried away as all that, we. . ." He groaned again, with feeling, at the adroitness of her searching fingers. "Bloody hell, love, didn't we agree that we couldn't afford to destroy any further parts of me?"

"Is that what you think?" she breathed. "I. . . Killian. . . if we. . . if we survive, and assuming you don't do anything stupid – "

"Difficult for me, I know – "

She uttered a dry little laugh. "Exactly. But I'm willing. . . you know, what you asked earlier. . . I'm willing to consider it. You know. Maybe."

"What?" He stared at her blankly.

"What you said. About us having a place. A home." Her hand, so bold, suddenly stilled. "Together."

A sensation like a blast of dynamite went off inside Killian's head. All he could see was whiteness, hear a rushing in his ears, not daring to believe what she was insinuating in case he was wrong, and he thought that if it was, it might take him apart for good. "Do you. . ." he croaked, stunned. "Are you. . . saying yes?"

Emma gave him a crooked smile. "Don't get too excited. I could still break it off."

It was true. She could. At the moment, however, he didn't care. Could care about nothing but her, the scent of her, the warmth of her body against his as they lay together on the bed, the covers tossed half over her and half over him, the last snowflakes melting in their hair, their breath fogging the windows. He should have told her, then. Should have told her about the mermaids' curse and how they might already be too late to save David. Should have told her that Baelfire was Neal Cassidy, the old college boyfriend who'd caused her so much pain, who'd set her up and left her, and who was, insofar and however as Henry existed, her older son's father. He should. It was the right thing to do.

But Killian Jones did not necessarily, by nature, do the right thing. He was a selfish bloody bastard, a pirate captain, a loner, a survivor. And all he wanted now was to keep this marvelous woman to himself, to hold her, to have her, to breathe. And so, as the _Roger_ sailed on into the night, he said nothing at all.

* * *

The green coast of England was visible on the horizon when they came above the next morning, causing Emma to stare and Killian to proudly pat the helm. He took it himself for the next leg, navigating up to the river estuary – Emma had decided not to ask how it was that no coast guard or navy patrol boat or other vessel ever seemed to come in sight of them. She supposed that Killian had learned a good deal about outrunning the authorities during three hundred years of pirating, but she couldn't quite see how they'd sail a fully rigged two-master up the Thames and expect nobody to notice. Killian, however, told her not to fret. "If someone does get a good look at her, which I doubt, this _is_ bloody England after all. They've got history coming out their ears. Besides, my girl's enchanted. She blends in."

Emma supposed that this was as much sense as could possibly be made in the current situation, and elected to keep her mouth shut. As they sailed up the Channel, she kept looking instead at her left hand. Killian had promised he'd buy her a proper engagement ring when this nonsense was over – not as if she cared, she'd never been one for jewelry or bling – but in the meantime, he'd given her one of his, silver with a ruby set in it, which fit nicely on her fourth finger. She liked the weight of it there, the look of it. It felt unreal in a pleasant way. It felt like a promise. That he'd stay with her. That they'd find David. That they'd get back from Neverland in time to save Storybrooke and rescue her parents too.

London began to appear out of the mist: Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the Tower, Westminster, Southwark, the Eye, St. Paul's. She kept expecting the pedestrians bustling along beneath their umbrellas to turn and stare at the pirate ship cutting up the river, but they didn't. Even the sightseeing boats slipped past without a pause by the Cockney guides talking loudly to camera-clutching tourists. Nobody aimed binoculars (or a gun) at them from the deck of _HMS Belfast._ In fact, Emma had to admit, Killian (once more) was right. They simply were not noticed.

Killian found a suitable berth downriver, steered them in, and nodded to Emma to toss the rope, which she did; it raveled firmly around the pylon, drawing the _Roger_ in. Killian made the wheel fast and beckoned to the sails to take themselves down, all of which Emma watched greedily. This was her first experience of magic, and she was determined not to miss anything.

Once everything had been shut, all hatches battened, they stepped carefully down onto the dock, sprinkled by a characteristic English fog. Emma held tightly to Killian's hand, not needing him to fall and smash his tailbone (that really would be adding insult to injury at this point) and helped him up to the street. As he hailed a black cab, she whispered, "Where are we going? Back to Mayfair?" The hotel where they'd conceived David, where the shadow had stolen Killian away. . . surely it would come back there again?

"No, lass." Killian's mouth was set. As the cab pulled over, and he opened the door, gesturing her down onto the seat, she saw a different sort of determination in his eyes, and a very old memory. "There's only one place we can be sure he knows. We're going to the Darlings."


	37. Chapter 37

The streets of London were grey and dark, roofed over with a forbidding mantle of fog, as the black cab wound its slow way through the heavy city traffic. Emma and Killian sat tensely on the edge of their seats, fingers nearly tearing the leather, as the oblivious driver rattled on about Chelsea's chances in the Premier League this year and why the bloody Tories were going all the wrong way about the austerity budget. He'd whistled when they'd given him their destination address in Kensington Gardens, but so far as Emma could tell, feeling the blue murder of Killian's stare on the back of his head, had not once attempted to run up the meter by taking them for a joyride in London's interminable roundabouts. Still, there was no way to make it faster. It had started to rain in earnest by the time they sloshed into the tonier postcodes and up toward the elegant brownstone mansion that Emma remembered, set back from the street by a hedge and garden gate. The lights were on in its old windows, giving an oddly cozy glow in the swiftly fading afternoon. Emma wanted nothing so much as to go in and be allowed to sleep a year, twenty, a hundred, a heroine in a fairytale indeed, but she already knew there was no time.

She stood in the dampness, shivering, as Killian settled their fare. How exactly this was achieved – she knew he likely still had _some_ money, but didn't know where – was a mystery, but he had slipped into some kind of incomprehensible Irish brogue, turning up the charm and eventually getting the guy to drive away with a befuddled look on his face. _Pirate._ Now that Emma knew it was all real, she couldn't help but reluctantly admire the sight of a professional at work. Surely Killian hadn't lived over three hundred years as a dread pirate by being an altruist, and bamboozling London cab drivers was probably not even top twenty on the list of his most despicable doings. And anything, _anything_ that got them closer to David was fine with her.

Yet even as Killian took her arm and started toward the house, Emma felt a sudden hesitation. "Shouldn't we. . . I don't know. . . call or something? We are just sort of, you know. Dropping in out of the blue."

"Later, lass. We can salve your tender conscience later." Killian's voice was grim. "We need to get to Neverland."

Emma paused, then nodded. They strode up the steps and rang the bell.

A long silence, until she wondered if the Darlings were even home. But just as she was about to hit it again, they heard footsteps. The latch clicked, and they found themselves face to face with a haggard, exhausted-looking woman, whom Emma belatedly recognized as Jane, Granny Wendy's daughter and the younger Wendy's mother. She looked at them as if not entirely sure who they were or what they were doing there, and then her face crumpled in relief. "Miss Swan," she said. "Killian. We had no way to contact you, we hadn't seen you in years, we didn't think you were going to come. Mother wanted. . . wants to see you both again. Very much."

Emma and Killian exchanged a stunned glance. Faced with such a heartfelt admission, it seemed doubly uncouth to inform her that they needed to use the nursery to summon up an extremely dangerous denizen of Neverland for their own purposes. What was more. . . it was Killian who finally put into words what Emma was afraid of. "Granny Wendy. . . Jane, is she. . .?"

"She's dying." Jane blinked hard. "It's not unexpected, you know. She's a hundred and two years old, and she's been sick. But I suppose I thought – all of us thought, really – that she would live forever."

Emma felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. How could they walk in like this, into the middle of the family's grief? But turning away from here, from her son, was equally unthinkable. Finally, feeling as out of place as if she'd driven up to a funeral in a clown car (not that far off, really) she stammered, "Can we come in, Mrs. James?"

"Of course, of course." Jane pulled the door wider. "You should have been in touch with Wendy, she'd have been happy to give you a lift from the airport or anything else you needed. She's upstairs with Mother, but I'll go and get her, she'll be so surprised. Wait here."

And with that, she hurried up the grand staircase, leaving Emma and Killian standing there as uncomfortably as a pair of high schoolers about to be put in detention. There was a hushed, still, funeral atmosphere in the house already; clearly, many of Granny Wendy Darling's countless friends and family were arriving to pay their respects at the end of her long life. Emma hadn't known the old lady well, and in fact had been intimidated by her; their last meeting had been when she ran here from the hotel in a panic, after the shadow kidnapped Killian. It must be very different for him. This was the woman to whom he owed everything, his life and education and job and place in this world, and he could barely spare her the decency of a proper farewell.

The silence had gotten onerous by the time they finally heard a step on the landing, and Emma's old college roommate and friend, Wendy James, appeared at the top. Clearly, she had been keeping the vigil at her grandmother's bedside; her hair was loose, her face pale and her eyes shadowed with weariness and grief. But when they fell on the visitors, they lit up like the sun. Totally without ceremony, she ran down the stairs and threw herself into Emma's arms.

Stunned, Emma could think of nothing to do but hug her back. She had completely forgotten what it was like to hug, or have physical contact at all, with anyone who wasn't David, and she surely hadn't expected such a warm welcome. After all, she was the one who had cut Wendy out of her life, thrown her generosity back in her face, stubbornly repelled all of her friend's attempts to make contact or revive old ties – the only time she had, in fact, was just after David was born and she was in danger of going completely broke and sleeping on a gunnysack by the river. She'd let Wendy pay for the South Boston apartment, then gone MIA again. And as she stood there, holding onto her, Emma felt a sudden sense of shame. As if her walls were slowly melting, flooding her out, drowning her. First Killian, and now. . .

"We didn't think you'd make it," Wendy said. "And with. . ." Her eyes performed a curious flick to Killian. There was surely something more than slightly strange about them turning up here, together, in distinctly couple-like fashion. Wendy knew Killian was a friend of her grandmother's, of course, but all she knew him as in relation to Emma was her one-time history professor. Emma had never told anyone who David's father really was. Not until Mary Margaret and Gold.

"Dr. Jones," Wendy said now, startling Emma, who'd never heard him called that – even though, she supposed, he was. "We didn't think you were. . . I mean, we had heard. . . "

"Aye, lass," Killian himself interrupted tersely. "It's a bloody long story. This isn't the way we meant to do it, but it's what it is. We need to speak with your grandmother, at once."

Wendy blinked, then nodded. Without another word, she led them up the old staircase, wood creaking under their feet. Intervals of drowned light slanted through the ornate windows, and Emma found herself searching for familiar scenes or patterns, here in this house of the very family that must know all there was to know about Neverland. Had Granny Wendy been there herself? She must have been. Had she known Pan, had Henry somehow been there before as well? In a land without time, it wouldn't matter when he'd been created, would it? How dangerous of an enemy was he? She shot an apprehensive glance at the stump of Killian's left arm. Would Henry recognize David as the brother he had been trying so hard to contact through dreams, the brother he had wanted for whatever sinister reason, and keep him safe? Take him into the Lost Boys or something? But if he went in there, would he ever come back out?

At that moment, Emma's crowded, clamoring thoughts were interrupted as they reached a heavy oak door and stepped through it, into a bedroom that smelled of medicine and sterility and sickness. The curtains were drawn, the lamps lit, and there were some four others present – Jane's elder daughter Moira, her husband, their son Jack, and another Darling relative Emma didn't know. At the far end, a tiny white-haired figure, fragile as a doll, lay propped against a heap of lacy pillows and heavy quilts.

Killian stopped short, making a muffled noise of agony. Emma glanced at him, but his face was turned away, his eyes as dark as a stormy sea. His voice sounded quieter and more tentative than she'd ever heard it when he finally pulled himself together enough to speak. "Wendy."

The old lady didn't answer, looking as if she had been struck by lightning. For a moment, Emma was afraid that the shock would cause her to expire on the spot, which was certainly not a desirable outcome for any bedside visit. Then in a faint whisper, Wendy Darling said, "Killian."

"Granny?" The younger Wendy glanced worriedly between them. "If it's too much. . . I can. . ."

"Nonsense," Granny Wendy snapped, with a fair simulacrum of her old feistiness. "I'm going to die soon enough, but it won't be thanks to him sauntering in here devil-may-care, seven years after vanishing off the face of the earth. I don't know what you think you're playing at, but – "

And then, she caught sight of his missing hand. Her mouth shut with a click. The silence that towered over the room was hideous. Finally, in a voice that would have caused even Catholic-school nuns to tremble in terror, she breathed, _"What happened?"_

Killian cringed. Neither the handsome, urbane, sophisticated academic or fearsome rogue pirate were anywhere to be found; he looked as intimidated as Emma had ever seen him. Not looking at Wendy, in fact looking intently at the handsome rococo ceiling, the chairs, the windows, his feet, _anywhere_ except her, he mumbled, "I lost it."

"You lost it? You _lost_ it?" Wendy attempted to push herself upright on her pillows. "As if your _hand_ was a dog that ran out of the house one morning and got run over by the mailman? You have a very queer definition of _lost_ indeed, Killian Jones, and if you think that I'm going to leave it at – after you promised – "

"Aye, I promised her, didn't I?" Killian's head jerked up. "Tink? She was the only one of the fairies who was even remotely convinced that I'd do as I said and mend my wandering ways. _She_ was the one that I promised not to turn back into Hook, who gave me my hand back in the first place, turned the _Roger_ into a portal so I could leave. She was the one who made it possible for me to come to you, to this world, and you took me in when I bloody didn't deserve it. I know. Because you wanted to prove a point after what I did to you. Because of Bae. Now it's all twisted back in on itself like an ouroboros. Bae's there. So is my son. We need to go back there. We need to go back to Neverland."

The hush that followed this outburst was almost palpable. The rest of the Darling family had gone pale. It was Moira who finally turned to her grandmother. "It's true?" she said, half an accusation and half in befuddlement. "All the stories? They're all true? It's. . . it's _real?"_

"Yes, of course it's real," Wendy said, irritated. "Who did you think was trying to steal Jack all those years ago – the Prime Minister? I'm dying, I don't see any need for gimcrackery and flimflam. Killian, it's about bloody time that you introduce yourself as who you are. I don't suppose I should have kept it secret this long, but nothing to be done for it now."

Killian flinched. Emma could feel the tension coursing through him. Then, as if making up his mind, he spun around and flourished a deep, dashing bow to the gathered Darlings. "Captain Hook, at your service."

Strained breathing was the only sound. Then at last Jack Banning, Wendy's teenage great-grandson, stepped forward. Instead of shock or disbelief or skepticism, the look on his face was utter triumph. "I _knew_ it!" he crowed. "I always knew! Back when you fought the shadow off for me, when I was five. I said you were a pirate. You told me a story about Hook in Neverland. And I said that Granny Wendy was the _real_ one. I knew it! I knew it!"

He began to skip around, fists pumping the air, before being restrained by his mortified mother, who clearly considered such behavior grossly inappropriate for a deathbed vigil. Yet Wendy only smiled approvingly. "Yes, you did, child. But I very much doubt it's what you think. Killian – you were there, weren't you? After the shadow stole you. How on _earth_ did you make it back?"

"It's. . . complicated."

"Why am I not surprised? Well then. The _Roger,_ what happened to her? Still in pieces?"

"I. . . no. I got her back, all right. Sailed her here. Anchored up in the Thames."

"Well then. You could, I presume, make use of that?"

"I'd rather not, really."

"Oh?" Wendy Darling arched an eyebrow. "And why would that be, pray?"

"I. . . may have angered the mermaids, after they helped me salvage her. Considerably angered them. Completely by accident and through no fault of my own, mind."

The old lady emitted a snort that was three times her size. "The more things change indeed, Killian Jones? It's one of the enduring mysteries of the universe that you ended up in a post which requires you to think, because for the life of me I can't see that you do it very often. So then. You need the shadow to come here? And hope you can snatch onto it and hold on all the way to Neverland?"

"Aye," Killian admitted. "It's not much of a plan, but it's our only one. Our lad, David. He's – "

"Yours?" Wendy's gaze turned sharp and appraising. "You and Miss Swan have a son?"

"Yes," Emma said, seeing it best to bite the bullet. "We do. And we'll stop at nothing to save him. We have to get him back. Please."

The old lady's eyes turned almost sympathetic as they lingered on Emma. She had a distinct feeling that Wendy was about to say something else, and that she wasn't going to like it. But instead Wendy merely thought for several moments, then arrived at a decision. "You," she said. "Help me to the nursery."

"Granny?" Moira looked aghast. "You're not supposed to be out of bed! The doctor says – "

"Oh, to hell with him. Interfering wanker. Make sure you tell him that I've instructed you not to sue if this should go inopportunely." Wendy pushed down the covers, and Emma could see that despite her bold words, the old lady had very little strength. Her thin wrists were trembling, but her face was firm and resolute.

Moira, young Wendy, and Emma all moved toward her at once, but Killian intercepted them. He strode to the bed, reached down, and let Wendy put her arms around his neck, lifting her easily against his chest. She looked as insubstantial as a wisp of cloud as he carried her carefully out of the room. After a pause, throwing a look of apology at the still-gobsmacked Darling family, Emma hurried to follow him.

Killian was climbing the stairs up to the third floor, reaching the top and turning down the corridor to the unused nursery. He pushed the door open with a foot, and Emma could feel the cold draft. The nursery was cool and dark, streetlights shining through the stained-glass window with its pirate ship worked in the arch. Killian carried Wendy to what must have been her old bed, when she'd slept in here with her brothers John and Michael, a century ago when they had all been young. It tugged painfully at Emma's heart to imagine it, looking around this place. Killian had once more said something about _Bae,_ who must be Mr. Gold's son, the reason he'd agreed to help (that is, double-cross) them in fetching the golden egg from Maleficent. Had Wendy known him? How deep did all these tangled connections go?

"Thank you," Wendy said with a sigh, as Killian laid her on the covers. "Pull up that blanket for me, would you? It'll be rather chilly, especially when you open the window."

Killian complied with the first part, but looked leery at the second. "Open it? That's all? What makes you think that will – "

"Captain," Wendy said, in a voice that brooked no tomfoolery. "Who's in charge here?"

"It bloody well isn't me," Killian mumbled, but obediently went to unlatch the window, letting in a draft of cold, misty air. The sounds of London drifted up faintly, traffic and bells and the distant susurrus of rain, the whistling wind. He remained there for a long moment, breathing it in, as Emma watched him. In all the panic, the long voyage on the pirate ship, the uncertainty of their plan, she had almost forgotten that he was coming back to the closest thing he'd had to a home in – God knew how long. She thumbed the heavy silver ring on her left hand, thinking again how he'd offered to take her and David here, give them a place to live, a real home. It was a dream she wanted more than anything. But if they didn't find their son, it wouldn't matter.

Looking around at Wendy and Killian and their tensely expectant attitude, she frowned. "What? Is it about to come busting in through the window or something?"

"Not right away, dear," Wendy answered, eyes still on the blowing curtains. "But he will. I'm quite certain of that. Sit down. I have a great deal to ask both of you."

Emma stayed on edge, not wanting to let her guard down and have a cozy catch-up chat. Her mind was running with visions of David lost in some weird, dangerous netherworld, and with images of what they had left behind in Storybrooke. Were Mary Margaret and David Nolan all right? Had the defenses Gold had put up against Home Office even worked, or had that been a fraud as well? But Wendy was owed that at least, was helping them when she would have been perfectly justified in doing no such thing. After a moment, huffing out a breath that hurt, she perched awkwardly on Wendy's bed. "Yeah, okay. What?"

Only too late did she realize that it sounded terse to the point of rudeness, but Wendy didn't appear to mind. Instead, the old lady commenced firing a roulette of questions, wanting to know everything that had happened since their last fateful meetings. Both Killian and Emma did their best to answer, checking the window every few minutes, but the one subject that Killian seemed eager to avoid was what exactly he had done to get the mermaids (mermaids, seriously?) so enraged at him, and how that prevented them from sailing his ship back to Neverland. Yet the details washed over Emma, inconsequential. Would she just _know_ it, somehow, if Storybrooke was gone? There were flickers of memory here and there, coming at her, torturing her. Like Emma Nolan was closer than she had ever been, but Emma Swan couldn't punch through the glass and join her. A turnover. What did a turnover have to do with it? Apple, something about an apple. . . eating it, forgetting. . . _Snow White and Prince Charming. . ._ and yet just Mary Margaret and David, her geeky parents, her mom who had cried when she went off to college, her dad with his bad dad jokes who worked at the animal shelter and –

 _There._ She'd had it. Just for a second, she'd definitely had it, and now it was gone again. Emma wanted to scream with frustration. She was closer than she'd ever been to finding her parents, but if she lost them like this, without a fight, then it would just make everything –

"Emma?" A hand touched her shoulder, startling her. "You all right, lass?"

Blinking and swallowing hard, she looked up into Killian's dark, concerned face. She forced in another breath, trying to slow her rapidly pounding heart. "I'm fine."

He nodded reassuringly, then leaned in and kissed her quickly. It was such an easy, natural thing to do, the kind of simple gesture you'd make when someone you loved was hurting, that it tightened her throat past speech. She remembered again that she was, in fact, engaged to him, that assuming survival and success, they were going to be married someday. It was such a strange, simple, wonderful thing that she almost couldn't believe it. She squeezed his hand, staring up at him. For the first time ever, at last, forever, she had to say it aloud. Her voice was hoarse, but heartfelt. "I love you."

An extraordinary change smoothed over his face. The way he looked at her – like there was no one else, here or ever. Like she could feel something lighting up in a place that had been so long dark. They took unspeakable strength from that moment, however small and short it was, and she could feel it in them both. Then Wendy said suddenly, warningly, _"Killian."_

Killian turned away with a start – then stared. Emma saw it as well. It wasn't yet dusk, but the nursery had suddenly grown very dark, and the lamps had gone out. It felt alive somehow, creeping, sinister, the curtains flapping madly, the wind very cold, a breath of pure and perfect darkness. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck. _This is it._

Apparently, Killian sensed the same thing. "Oh bloody hell, here we go," he hissed, moving to put himself between Emma, Wendy, and the window. "Lass, this is going to be a – "

"Hell of a rodeo?" Emma finished wryly, jumping up to stand beside him. "Yeah. I kind of got that impression."

Any further attempts they might have made at talking strategy, however, came to a very, very emphatic halt. Completely on its own accord, the window flew back against the jamb with a screech of hinges, and something dark and terrible roared through like a tornado – which, for a dazzled moment, she thought it was. Then she made out the rough shape of a boy, the burning white eyes like a demon's, the way it was lunging at Killian, and threw herself at it.

Emma lost track of everything from there. It was a howling, jumbled mess, as she grappled to get hold of the slick insubstantial fabric of the shadow and it writhed like a serpent, as she tore into it with claws and even teeth; if they had successfully lured it here after all, there was no way, _no way_ she was letting it fly back to Neverland without them. She wrapped arms and legs around it, thought she felt Killian struggling to grab her – he had only one hand, he had to go either for her or the shadow, and he wasn't going to let her go, refused to let them be torn apart again – they were whirling above the bed like a dervish, she saw Wendy just below them, the old lady's fragile hands raised as if in futile defiance, and the shadow swooping down on her as well –

And then, in a maelstrom of swirling, snapping blackness, Emma felt her feet leave the floor, hurtled head and shoulders through the window and out over the glittering twilight of London, the pinpricks of streetlamps growing smaller and smaller as they rocketed upwards, her ears popping and her hair lashing her face. She could still feel Killian clamped in a death grip around her waist, like a lead weight pulling her down, and kicked and struggled to keep hold of the shadow. In very, very different circumstances, she might have enjoyed this demented aerial thrill ride through the city, soaring over the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, so close she thought they were going to snag on the top, wondering how no one could possibly see them, or if that was part of the magic as well. Then they were rising, rising as if fired from a catapult, up through the clouds – she was instantly drenched to the skin, but they were still going, up where the stars shone lucent, _second to the right,_ she squinted and tried to make out which one it might be, but they were traveling far too fast to tell. They kept on blasting through the night. She had done it. They had. They were going to _Neverland._ To –

At last, as suddenly as they'd shot up, they began to tumble. Faster and faster, head over heels over head over heels through miles of empty sky, as Emma tried to scream but thought her lungs had been crushed out of her body. Only darkness, only falling, madness, until –

And then, in a blaze, she saw it. Out of nowhere, almost literally, sketched into existence with broad bold strokes like an illuminator's quill, a glittering sea unfolding like sparkling fabric far below, a crown of mist, a tropical green island that climbed from lowland jungle to snowy mountain peak, palm trees swaying, a rainbow daggering through a roaring waterfall. Beautiful as it was, there was no way to slow their fall, and they were going to hit that ocean and sink like a stone – that was, if the impact didn't kill them outright, which from this height it very well might. But then she felt Killian clawing at her again, ripping her loose, wrapping his arms around her – and then someone else was pulling at her as well, shifting her weight and momentum, she couldn't hold on anymore, she was falling –

Falling –

_Falling –_

That alone wasn't the problem. It was very nearly peaceful. As peaceful as it could be when you were facing imminent death. It was only when they hit the ground that it caused all the grief.

* * *

Light. That was the first thing she felt. Warm, hot, scorching in fact, beating on her face like a drumbeat, pulling her up from the depths of the soft darkness that had enveloped her. She was unable to comprehend it. But whatever it was, it was insistent. It was dragging her up, up and up, to –

Groaning, Emma opened her eyes.

She was lying spread-eagled on some sandy white beach, ice-blue breakers lashing the shore with a distant thundering sound, and the light wasn't, as she'd thought, sunlight. It was a ball of brilliant white starshine glow about the size of her fist, which had apparently been sitting on her chest and doing some nefarious Neverland activity while she was non compos mentis. She raised a hand, trying to swat it like a fly, but it reversed with an angry buzzing sound, shedding some kind of sparkly dust, and turned bright crimson. Blasted little –

"Easy there, lass! Easy! You chase her off, we're done for!"

Emma froze, then sucked in a gasping breath of both confusion and relief. She spun around, head reeling, just as Killian's hand caught her wrist, pulling it sharply away. Her instinct was to struggle against him too, but she forced herself to stop. Then something Killian had said back at the Darling house hit her, and she turned back. "Don't tell me," she panted. "This is Tinkerbell."

The bright ball of light buzzed angrily again.

"She doesn't think much of your manners either," Killian translated dryly. "And seeing as she already tried to kill me when we landed here, I'd say you got quite the better of the deal – oh all _right,_ you bloody pixie, you didn't try to kill me, you were just teaching me a lesson – and is a temperamental little ball of mischief with a capacity for spite five times her size, we had better be careful. We have no chance of finding the Lost Ones if she buggers off and leaves us here."

The fairy buzzed again, threateningly. Emma stared at it, still gaping. It was one thing to have accepted, on an intellectual level, that everything she had thought was just a story was in fact real. It was quite another to fly from London, crash-land in the middle of a magical realm where you never got any older, and see your fiancé, who was actually Captain Hook, conversing fluently with a fist-sized ball of light and talking about finding Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. She was tempted to pinch herself, but didn't think it would do any good.

"Which we would completely deserve if she did, especially in my case," Killian finished up, looking resigned. "Being a stupid lunk-headed idiot with no capacity for – you know what, no. I'm not insulting myself for Emma's behalf, Tink. Just tell us. Have you seen him?"

The ball of light remained silent. Emma had the distinct impression it was sulking.

"I'd forgotten what contrary little things fairies could be," said a third voice. "That _is_ the one part about Neverland that Mr. Barrie got right. Foolish man, I told him the rest, but he did not think it was at all suitable for children."

Startled, Emma turned to look over her shoulder – and beheld none other than Granny Wendy, sitting in the shade of a palm tree, as regal and unruffled as if she hadn't just been on a time-and-space-bending sojourn at the age of one hundred and two. She still looked frail and pale and slight, but the balmy, salty tropical air seemed to have done her the world of good; her eyes were bright and sparrow-like in her wrinkled face. "Looks quite a bit different from here, I must say."

"Oh, God." Emma shook her head. "We didn't mean to bring you here."

"That's quite beside the point, dear," the old lady said composedly. "Spilled milk, open barn doors, and what have you. We really _don't_ have time to sit about palavering, so if Tinkerbell would lead on, regardless of what she would like to do to the captain later, that would be lovely."

Killian threw a glance of considerable misgiving at Tink, but had to give in – it must have been the fairy who threw a handful of pixie dust at them, stopping them from being unceremoniously killed on impact, she must have some room to care after all. He knelt and hoisted Wendy up onto his back like a small child, then turned toward the fairy.

"Well, Tink," he said with a sigh. "Let's go."

* * *

They walked for most of the day. If that was even a useful marker of time in Neverland, which Emma had the distinct feeling it wasn't. They kept close to the shore, sometimes wading up to knee-deep in the water, as Killian said it wasn't safe to venture farther inland completely unarmed. But Tink led them to a cache of weapons in the jungle, and both Killian and Emma strapped on swords, the weight unfamiliar at her waist – but not in a bad way. Since Killian was still carrying Wendy, that meant the first line of defense, if they were attacked, fell to Emma. _I just hope I don't lop my own head off._

It was starting to get dark by the time they reached the desolate, rocky cape of the island, the bloated sun splashing down in the waves in a violently vivid spill of red and gold and crimson, more colors than Emma had ever seen in her life. She was sweating like a pig, trying not to think about how thirsty she was. There was a freshwater spring where they'd made an impromptu skin out of some of Killian's leather, but he had warned them to be sparing with it. He was keen to stay out of the trees if at all possible. Nearly everything in there, or so he had informed Emma, could kill you without breaking a nail. Flora or fauna, it didn't matter. It was lethal.

 _Nice place._ Clearly it was nothing like the Boy's Own paradise she had read about, but as Wendy had said, J.M. Barrie hadn't been interested in the more gruesome details. Wiping her forehead, Emma stared out over the rocky shore, the dark jungle, the molten sunset. She couldn't shake the suspicion that Tink might be leading them in circles – hadn't she, in the original tale, been Pan's ally, Hook's enemy? She cared enough about Killian to stop him from dying, but. . .

At that moment, down the beach, Emma caught sight of a dark figure. Alone, or at least it looked like it. Stumbling closer and closer. Coming. Looking. Hunting.

Her breath caught. She shot a frantic glance over her shoulder at Killian. He looked back at her grimly, then shook his head. "Emma," he whispered. "Emma, wait, that might be – "

Emma, however, didn't hear him. She wasn't going to wait to be made into lunch, hadn't come here to skulk behind the shrubbery and hope for a lucky break. It was time for drastic measures; she was going to tear through, with her bare hands, anything else that tried to keep her from David, and this had to be a Lost One, a member of Pan's gang. He could tell her what they had done with her son, or he could bite her. She didn't care anymore.

Her boots kicked up sprays of sand as she sprinted down the beach, fast and hard as she had in any of her crook-catching days. The guy never saw her coming. With a grunt of exertion, she flung herself onto his back and took them both down headlong.

He let out a squawk of shock, struggling. Yet there was something. . . _familiar_ about the sound, and her raging blood froze. He was kicking and writhing like a landed fish, but her hands, her arms, all of her had gone completely numb as she shoved at him and flipped him over, onto his back on the wet sand, as the last of the sunset fell over his face, as he stared up at her and –

Emma felt as if she was about to faint. She couldn't process, simply had no idea where or why or how, or _anything._ But it was. It was. It _was._

" _Emma?"_ Neal Cassidy's face was a mask of shock. "The – _hell –_ are you doing here?"

"I could." She tried to speak, failed. Swallowed something foul back down, still couldn't breathe, chest heaving. "I could ask you the same question."

"Emma!" It was Killian's voice this time, shouting from the bluff, and she saw Neal turn to stone. A second later, Killian was skidding down, still with Wendy clinging to his back, running toward both of them. "Emma, what are you – "

"He." Emma sounded as if she was drunk. There was a dull buzzing in her ears, a tuneless bell. "What is he doing here? Is this – is _this_ Baelfire?"

Neal blanched. "Who the hell told you that name?"

"Bae," Killian breathed. "You're all right, lad? You're not hurt?"

"I was better before I ran into you!" Neal sprang to his feet, brushing himself off in a frenzy. "What are you doing? How did you get here? Why did you bring her into this? You're just the same as you always have been, using people, destroying families! God, why won't you just – "

Killian appeared to have absolutely no pithy retort to hand. In fact, he looked as if Neal – _Baelfire,_ was _this_ Mr. Gold's son, was _he?–_ had just stolen his sword and stabbed him. Emma felt as if she was falling down a long dark tunnel, as if she was a teenager and terrified again, that he'd left her, set her up with the watches and run, sent her to jail and shattered her –

Or was it marijuana, it might have been the fake pot bust – she couldn't remember, Emma Nolan and Emma Swan were battling harder than ever in her head –

And then Wendy Darling said, "Bae."

Neal's face, if possible, went whiter. He took several stumbling steps backwards, raised his hands to his face, dropped them. He opened and shut his mouth. He looked everywhere except her, them, staring out to sea, tense as a harp string about to break. Then he whispered, "Wendy."

Emma's head turned into a pivot as she whipped it back and forth between them. "What?"

"Bae," Wendy said again, very gently. She reached out a hand, her skin papery, almost translucent in the moonlight. "I'm dying, Bae. You don't need to do this. You don't need to keep me out, to keep all of us out. We're here. Listen to me. Look. Look at me."

Neal didn't answer. His shoulders were trembling. All of him was, in fact.

Emma still didn't feel as if she was breathing, as if something was jammed in her chest like a wedge of shrapnel, turning her light-headed, wounded, vulnerable, broken. _Neal._ It kept running through her head, like a small and painful electric shock every time. _Baelfire. Mr. Gold's son._ What were the odds – what were the _odds –_ she'd known him in college, her college boyfriend – she was sure of it, almost sure of it, but still her mind kept insisting they'd been troubled kids on the roam together, robbing convenience stores until she had to go straight or get kicked out of school – she was struggling against it, choking, the memory, true or false or –

At last, with a small, strangled sound, Neal spun around. Wendy reached out for him, and he pulled her off Killian's back, into his arms. Holding the old lady close, he sank to the sand as if his knees had given out, cradling her as she reached up one hand to touch his cheek. His entire body was racked with the force of his silent sobs.

"Bae," Wendy murmured at last. "Bae, how did you turn into this?"

"How did _I?_ How did – how did _you?"_ Neal's voice was cracked and watery, almost a howl. "You were supposed to be safe! That's why I went! I wanted to keep you _safe!"_

"I am safe," Wendy said gently. "I've lived a good long life. It was my choice to come back here. Death is nothing to fear, sweetheart. Not for me. You've made your path. I've made mine."

Neal plainly wanted to say something else, but at that moment, a witchy glow fell over them as Tinkerbell shot through the trees like a falling star – until now, Emma hadn't even noticed she was missing. But the little fairy was rattling and shaking and almost screaming, clearly in the utmost of agitation, landing on Killian's shoulder and shoving at him, as he yelled, "Slow down, you silly bint, I can't understand a word you're saying! What do you mean, they – "

And then, watching him, Emma saw him freeze, the way Neal had on seeing her. Saw him turn to marble, bloodless, as if a blow had been struck to his heart. It scared her so much, at the thought of losing what she had only just come to terms with loving, that she rushed to his side, feeling as if she was holding him up. "Killian? Killian? What did she say? Killian!"

He shook his head, slowly as if he'd been concussed. His eyes were two bleak blue hollows in the skull of his face. Certainty settled into her stomach, freezing as a blade. _"David. . .?"_

Killian nodded.

"What?" Emma's voice was close to a scream, even as she saw Neal staring at them in a mix of confusion and horror. " _Where is he? Where?"_

"He," Killian began croakily. "He. . . was with the Lost Ones, Tink says. With Pan. One of them."

"He _was?"_ Emma's world was turning to static.

"He was," Killian repeated, barely a whisper. "Until recently. The mermaids attacked Pan's boys. A bloody battle, out by the cove. And they. . . they took David. Took him down. He's gone."

 


	38. Chapter 38

_Gone._

The word ripped into Emma like a searing blade. The world lost all focus, purpose, color, meaning, as it sawed through her to the spine, through flesh and blood and sinew. No. No, it couldn't be. David could not be gone. Not her kid. She had been convinced, through this progressively more demented adventure, that failure was simply not an option. It might be rough, it might be hairy, but she'd find him again. He was the one thing that made her messy, screwed-up, stupid life worth living. Without him, there was nothing. Without him, this had all been in vain. The flight to Neverland, her very existence, anything. She couldn't reunite her family after all. Storybrooke was probably gone by now as well, blown to pieces. Nothing. Nothing. _Nothing._

Emma barely realized that she had gone to her knees until she felt someone's arms around her waist, trying desperately to hold her up as she collapsed. Or was that too dramatic to say? She hadn't said a word, hadn't uttered a sound, her face a mask, blasted, snow white, tearless. Something was happening to her. Something strange. Her blood had been turned to flame in her veins, running and coruscating and sparkling through her, her hair blowing back, inhaling a scent like silver and sugar and smoking earth, fists clenching and snarling with a power she had never known, had never imagined, could never describe. Something like magic.

Emma threw back her head as if to scream in pain, but the sound that emerged wasn't human. It was high, shrieking, feral, more than halfway to madness, as she tore herself free of Killian's embrace and spun around. She saw everything a hundred times more clearly, a glowing miasma ringing her eyes as they burned, her voice impossibly calm. "I'm going to kill them."

"Are you out of your _mind?"_ Neal stared at her. "Go against _mermaids,_ Emma? They're not some cute little things that brush their hair and sing – they're cold-blooded murderers! For this – who even is this – "

With that, he trailed off. With her strange heightened perception, she could see the connections whirring in his brain. Killian had said that David and Neal fell down the portal together – how much had he known then? Not the entire story, but it was swiftly filling itself in. "David," Neal said, his voice almost a croak. "He's _your_ son? With – with that guy? With _him?"_

"Yes," said Emma. "Get out of the way."

"No, seriously. Emma, you can't. It's suicide. Come on. Come on, please." Neal's voice took on its old wheedling tone. "We can still get out of here. You know. Find somewhere. Like the old days. You don't need this life, this crap. We can escape. Can – "

" _I said, GET OUT OF THE WAY!"_ This time her voice really did rise to a scream, and she flung out both hands, feeling the roar as some kind of scalding energy exploded off them, catching Neal square in the chest and bodily catapulting him backwards. Killian was shouting at her, but she didn't care. She was drunk, demented on the poisonous taste of the apple, the power burning through her like a drug. She didn't know where the mermaids' cove was, but she'd find it. She could sense it. Murder them all with her bare hands. Drown as well. She didn't even care.

Emma started to run. Her boots kicked up the sand, hair streaming, lips peeling back in a mad smile, arms pumping. She was vaguely aware of a ball of light zooming along behind her, circling her head like a vexing horsefly, but she raised her hand and aimed a pulse of magic that sent Tinkerbell crashing to the ground. Each stride ate up more distance, sleek and lethal and strong, over and over, over and over, barely needing to breathe, fleeing down a beach in the Neverland night, fleeing to nowhere, as she had so often in her life, one more empty hope, one more shattered dream –

"Going somewhere, dearie?"

Emma's brain dimly recognized the voice while her feet were still running, and she lurched forward a few ungraceful steps before skidding to a sudden halt. She whirled around, gaping at the odd little gremlin who had materialized from the shadows, skin glistening, clad in some kind of couture crocodile-skin suit, teeth black and pointed and wide eyes gleaming. All in all, he bore only the most superficial resemblance to the poised, urbane pawnbroker she had met back in the real world, but it was him beyond a doubt. "Gold."

He dipped his head, then giggled, a high, eerie sound. "Look a bit different, don't I?"

"I could care less what you look like. Get out of the way."

Emma moved to lash out at him as she had at Tink, but he countered so fast that his hand was a blur, turning her clumsy, unformed attack and deflecting it back on her hard enough to knock her wind out. "Still quite an amateur, aren't we, dearie? There _is_ so much I could teach you. And you do know that all magic comes with a price? If you carry on like this, you could rescue your lad, or you could kill everyone and destroy Neverland for good. Your choice, really."

Emma hesitated, on the brink of trying to go after him again, but something about his words uncomfortably jarred her. "I – could rescue him? David?"

"There's always a choice." Gold – or whatever this creature was that was not quite Gold – tittered again. "If you let me show you how."

Still she hesitated. "You betrayed us. You stole that – whatever was in that bottle that you had us fight the dragon for, and left us behind while you – "

"And yet, you seem to have found your way here, dearie." The imp raised an eyebrow. "So let us assume it was not a fatal betrayal. Unlike, say – "

" _Crocodile!"_

Both of them spun around just in time to see Killian Jones tearing hell-for-leather down the beach, face more set and desperate than Emma had ever seen it. Without hesitating, he flung himself between her and Gold, arms outstretched, shielding her. "No," he gasped. "Do whatever you want to me, Rumplestiltskin, but if you're laying a hand on her, you're killing me first."

"Once again, Captain, your knack for overdramatically misinterpreting a situation that would be far improved by your prompt removal knows no limits." Gold – no, most certainly Rumplestiltskin – cackled. "And I must say your offer is. . . hmm. . . _tempting?_ Very tempting. There would be a symmetry to it, wouldn't there? To have her stand there and watch as I crush your heart in my fist? Just willing to die so swiftly after all?"

"Of course I don't want to bloody die, demon," Killian growled. He kept his hook up and his hand on his sword as Emma tried to move him out of the way. "Now, if you'll kindly bugger off to the permanent oblivion you so richly deserve, we can see if the mermaids have left us a scrap of David to – "

"Oh." Rumplestiltskin glanced back and forth between them, plainly delighted. "Well, well. You haven't told her, have you?"

Killian went stiff. Emma could feel it, as close together as they were still standing, his body shielding hers, and she didn't understand. A sharp blade of disquiet sliced through her magic high, leaving her feeling cold and confused, a sensation as if the world was falling away. She clutched at him, not sure she wanted to hear the answer. "What. . . what is he talking about?"

Killian remained silent.

"Is that trouble in paradise I spot?" Rumplestiltskin's manic grin widened. "I do have connections here, you know. The Dark One always does. Dear, dear, Captain. I thought you'd do better with your second chance, but you're still as much a lying lowlife as ever."

"What. Is. He. Talking. _About?"_ Emma's fingers were crackling again, sparks spitting between them. Her lie detector was uncomfortably concurring with the fact that, horribly, Rumplestiltskin had a legit point. "Killian Jones, if you don't tell me right now, I'm going to kill you myself."

Her voice was low, hard and cold as stone, and she could feel his flinch, his understanding that she meant every word of it. He ran his hand through his hair and spun to face her. "Lass, I. . . I should have told you. It's my fault. After the mermaids helped me salvage the _Roger,_ and asked something in return. I broke it. Broke the bargain and left Neverland and gave them nothing, so they cursed me and all my descendants. I. . . I didn't know about David, then. It's. . . it's not an excuse."

Emma's heart seized up. So did her fist. She felt as if a bomb had gone off in her chest, leaving only rubble, sending her spinning out into the abyss. Her voice was a croak. "You _what?"_

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." His blue eyes searched hers, panicked and imploring. "I was Hook, I was desperate to get back to you any way I could, I was an arrogant bloody bastard and I paid the price. And after I found that I – that we had a son. . . gods, Emma, I've wanted that for so long, a child, a woman, a family, a place to belong. . . I didn't think we'd ever go back to Neverland, after I left. I've been fighting so _damned_ long to leave this hellhole forever, and I thought. . ." His voice cracked. "That if you knew. . . you'd not want a bloody thing to do with me."

" _You should."_ Emma's throat hurt. She could feel the pulse pounding behind her eyes, her head too light, every breath a struggle. _"You should have told me."_

"I. . . know." He sank to his knees in front of her, the devastation written stark and bleak across his face. Tears were streaming openly down his cheeks. "But you barely believed me when I said I'd been in Neverland, you were still keeping me so far away. . . if I'd said that, you'd have sent me to the asylum, and I couldn't, Emma! I couldn't! Not with you, lass! Not again! I couldn't lose you, and I was a bloody _coward!"_

Emma sucked a ragged breath. Half of her wanted nothing so much as to rip his ring off her left hand and throw it into his face, tell him that she'd marry him only when it was a cold day in hell, and the other half of her was excruciatingly aware of Rumplestiltskin watching them in utter glee, glorifying in Killian's agony. And seeing that, _feeling_ that, even the faintest echo of it in her own heart, was terrifying, _terrifying_ in its familiarity. Of how long she had lived behind walls, shutting herself off, unwilling to reveal the faintest glimpse of her true self to anyone for fear they'd run from her, leave her behind again. She could see through his eyes, she could breathe into his lungs, feel the fevered pounding of his heart. The moment balanced on a high wire, far above the ground. She could take a step, walk forward. Or she could fall.

"Killian," she said, barely above a whisper. "Stand up."

He stared at her as if unsure he had heard correctly, not daring to believe it, making her chest ache more. She'd worn that look so often in her life, mistrusting any scrap of kindness or friendliness, wondering what the price was. But she knew now, once and for all, that she couldn't go back to that. He'd changed her, and she had changed him, and something greater had come out of it, for them both. No, she wasn't doing this. She wasn't playing someone's sick game and ending up miserable again. This was her choice. For her.

"Killian," she said again, the faintest breath. "I love you."

The look on his face then almost broke her in half. The utter magnitude of his disbelief and fear and grief and pain and awe, his staggering wonder, as if he'd seen a heavenly vision to strike him blind. He reached for her, hand and hook, the two halves of the man that had done this, who was unlike any man she had ever known, was her heart and mind and soul, her –

She should have known it. Should have guessed that Rumplestiltskin would choose that exact moment, when both of their guards were down, to complete teaching the lesson that he had begun over three hundred years ago, in some time and place far beyond this one, but not so different after all. As Killian pulled her savagely into his arms, as she opened her mouth for his kiss – she sensed something, a fraction of a second too late, and shoved him away. Tried to shove him behind her, lashing out with both hands, a tidal wave of raw, rough, uncoordinated, uncontrolled magic that lit up the Neverland night like fireworks. But it didn't work.

_Too late._

"Ah," Rumplestiltskin said cheerily, from where he was somehow standing _behind_ her, without ever seeming to have moved. "I thought we might have to deal with that. No sudden moves, dearie. I wouldn't want to have to do something rash."

All the hot torrent of joy she had felt a moment ago charred to cinders. Emma turned around.

Killian was on his knees again, but not in supplication. His head was thrown back in a silent scream, features contorted in agony, as Rumplestiltskin, hand haloed in an eerie ring of violet-colored light, somehow had reached _inside_ his chest, squeezing. Emma stared, at a complete disconnect from whatever she was supposed to be understanding about this situation. It looked as if Rumple was trying to rip out his _heart –_ but that wasn't even –

"Now," the Dark One said. "Shall we have a chat, Miss Swan, or shall I crush this to dust and rid you of a burden?"

"Get your hands off him." Emma was already reloading for another attack, without the faintest clue how she could overmatch a sorcerer who'd been at his craft for centuries when she'd only discovered she even possessed magic just a few minutes – hours? – ago. Even if so, she couldn't reach him before Rumple squeezed, and that clearly was the worst of all possible things that could happen. Could a man just die like that, drop, if somehow it was possible to remove his heart from his body with magic, and crush it? Could _Graham –_

That was a horrifying thought, but she couldn't dwell on it. It didn't matter. She and Killian were both about to die. She raised her hands, preparing for a fight, anything, it was futile, fruitless, no way to –

" _Papa!"_

Emma's head jerked around, Killian's head jerked back, Rumple's head jerked up, and all three of them stared at the man, battered and breathless, just emerging from the trees, carrying the frail, nightgown-clad figure of Wendy Darling on his back. His face was white as chalk, a specter's, accusing. "You haven't changed at all," Neal Cassidy – yet there was no longer doubt, it was not his real name – whispered loathingly. "Still about to kill whoever's in your way. Let him go."

Rumplestiltskin withdrew his hand from Killian's chest so fast it was a blur, and he collapsed. Emma ran to him, lifting him frantically into her arms. "Are you – what the hell did he just – "

"Bae." If it was possible for the dread dark wizard to look vulnerable, terrified, this was it. "Bae, what are you. . . I've been looking, I came here. . . this _pirate_ stole your mother, he tore our family apart, everything I've done has been for you. . ."

Neal barked a scornful laugh. "Yeah? Our friend the captain over there had a different story. Said she ran off with him, and _you_ ripped her heart out and crushed it. Like you were trying to do just now. You always hated loose ends, Papa. Remember the time you killed our maid, the _mute,_ for even _hearing_ about the dagger? Do you? _Do you?"_

"Bae," Killian rasped, from where he was still lying in Emma's lap. "Bae, lad, I wanted to tell you – please, I always wanted you to – "

"Be quiet," Neal said bitterly. "I'm not doing this for you either. But you – you and her – you have a kid. A son. I didn't want another child to lose their father just because of what mine turned into."

Rumplestiltskin – more Gold now, really – continued to look utterly at a loss. Finally he said entreatingly, "Bae, I know. I know I've done so much wrong, made so many mistakes. But I can fix it. Please, let me. I'll turn back the clock – this is Neverland, it's easy, so easy to make you fourteen again, then we can – "

"Are you _crazy?"_ Neal cried. "What on earth makes you think I _want_ to be fourteen again? You're still addicted to magic, still using it to bully people and ruin their lives – no! _No!_ I don't even want to talk to you! Go. Just. . . just go."

"No. Bae." Gold moved closer. "I'll do better, I won't use it for evil, I'll – look." He made a gesture, scattering bright flecks of light like fairy glow everywhere. "I can do it. Please. I can change."

Neal, far from being impressed, was staring at his father, aghast. "Are you insane?" he roared. "Here, in Neverland, when Pan is going to pick up your traces anyway, and you're throwing up a giant signal to let him know where we – "

He never finished the sentence. Emma heard a strange, insistent thrumming in the dark sky, followed by a sensation that made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. Something or some _one_ was dive-bombing from above, half a dozen, a dozen, more – shadows gathering form and exploding into existence on every side, things, no, _boys,_ raggedly dressed in hoods and leaves and cloaks, naked steel bared in their hands, as they swooped in with ululating yells and shrieks of glee. "Kill the grownups! Kill them! Kill them!"

Emma remained frozen a moment longer at the sheer absurdity of the situation, then scrambled to her feet and dragged Killian with her. He was trying to shove her away, shouting, as he hauled on his sword. "Go! Go! Go! I'll cover for you, lass. _Go!"_

Clearly, then, these were the Lost Boys. Emma groped at her own sword, still thinking of David – if there had ever been any chance of saving him, if there was any –

Everything was chaos. She could see Neal fighting off two downright feral teenagers with his bare hands, awkwardly encumbered by the need to protect Wendy. Gold was firing detonations indiscriminately, patches of sand towering with unearthly fire as the Lost Ones skipped and dodged. And then, the seething throng of homicidal children was blown apart as it, as _he,_ came shooting through, sword raised, and it clanged madly against hers.

Emma felt the breath go out of her again. She battled him backwards as inexpertly as only a raw novice could, trying desperately not to hurt him, just to keep his blade away. "Henry?" she shouted. "Henry! Don't you remember me? I'm – I'm Emma! I'm your _mother!"_

She saw both Killian and Neal's jaws drop, but didn't have time to entertain their questions. "Henry," she panted, staring at the young brown-haired boy, at Pan, the leader of the gang, the master of Neverland. Tink had said that David was with them, that Henry had taken him into the Lost Boys before the mermaids came for him. "Henry, please. Stop. _Henry!"_

"I don't know who you are!" he shouted back. "You're not my mother. Pan never had one. You're here, in _my_ kingdom, and you're going to die!"

Emma flung a desperate look at Killian. "Go!" she yelled. _"You go! David! Now!"_

For a horrible instant, she thought he was about to refuse. But then, making her think of that time he'd snatched the poker at the Renaissance Hotel and fought his way free of four federal agents, he turned on some kind of Terminator mode, slashing and hacking with sword and hook through the hungry crowd of Lost Ones. He knew where the mermaid cove was, at least he damn well should – but the mermaids would be waiting for him, take him, take them both, had she just condemned him to death as well – _they cursed me and all my descendants_ –

But as Killian's sprinting shadow vanished down the beach, and she still was locked in the fight of her life with the son she'd always known she had, yet had never been more than a memory or a dream, Emma Swan did not have time for anything but the present. She and Henry dueled back and forth, and she went to one knee, rolling away as his blade whistled down, still trying to reach him somehow, any way she could. She clawed at the belt of leaves he wore, his next backhand nicking her throat so she could feel blood trickling down it, until at last she got hold of his wrist and overpowered him, dragging him down into the sand with her, assaulted with memories of when he'd come to her on that night in Oxford years ago, when he'd wanted her to fly with him to Neverland, to be his mother. She hadn't then. She'd lost him. But now, she couldn't. "Henry," she gasped. "Henry. It's Emma. It's me."

He stared down at her uncomprehendingly, glowing with mad fervor. "I don't know you."

"Yes, you do. David. Your little brother, David." Emma struggled to suck air into her flattened lungs. "You wanted to find us both, but you couldn't, because of the curse. So you tried to reach him through dreams, anything you could. You wanted to bring us to Neverland. We're here."

Henry's gaze flickered with what might have been uncertainty. Hoping to encourage it along, Emma pressed her case. "You're not a bad person, Henry. I'm sorry I couldn't come with you when you asked, but. . . as you said, you don't really exist in my world. Just here, in Neverland. And I had to grow up. I had to – "

It was only as his eyes flared that she realized, too late, that she'd made a fatal mistake. "You _had_ to?" he snarled, and his bony elbow caught her squarely in the throat, making her gag as she went down again. "No! No you _didn't!_ You didn't _have_ to leave me!"

"No!" Emma pleaded. "No, that's not what I meant, I didn't – "

He wasn't listening. He reached for the knife at his side, a strange glamour shimmering around the blade as if it was something more than mere steel, and paralysis had taken hold of her, trapped her in her head, left her numb and slumped and useless, unable to fight, unable to think, move, breathe. As Pan, Pan to the bone, nothing left of Henry at all in his face –

Raised the knife over his head, crowed, and plunged it into her heart.

* * *

Killian Jones had never run so hard or so fast in his life, and his life was a very long one. It had taken every ounce of mental wherewithal he had to leave Emma's side in the middle of a battle, especially after what had just happened with the crocodile and the Lost Ones, but she had ordered him to go, had trusted him with their son's life or whatever slender chance remained of saving it, and he could not fail in that. Not after it was his bloody fault that the mermaids had gone for David in the first place, not after he had so very nearly lost everything for the second time, and for good. And it was no thanks to him that he hadn't. It was all thanks to Emma. He couldn't fathom how she had mustered the bravery and strength and spirit to defy the Dark One to his face, to choose life instead of darkness, love instead of fear. _Blood and hellfire, what a woman. What a bloody, amazing, brilliant goddess of a woman._

Up ahead, he could see the rocks surrounding the mermaids' lagoon, glittering in the moonlight, a trap set to snare the unwary and pull them down to drown. Everything about this place was twice as lethal as it was beautiful, and it was beautiful. Palm trees swayed in the tropical breeze, stars the size of fists rippling their reflections across the paint-black, glassy water. He staggered up the white crystal sand, starting a horrible stitch in his side, chest still aching from where the crocodile had had his filthy paws inside it, swearing nonstop as he scanned madly for the mermaids. "Where are you?" he growled. _"Where are you?"_

He thought he saw a glimmering flash of scales further out, and abandoned all thought of propriety or prudence. _They had his son._ He ripped off his long black leather jacket, took a firmer grip on his sword, and charged into the water.

All at once, the deceptive calmness boiled to life. They exploded at him from every side, bronze teeth gnashing, talons raking through his shirt and breeches and drawing stinging trails of blood, seaweed hair tossing and powerful tails fluming the water white, one catching him full across the face and leaving him stunned and reeling, but it would have taken far more than that to stop him. He slashed back with his hook and blade and everything else he had, teeth bared, snarling. _"Who wants it, then?"_ he bellowed. _"Who wants it, aye?"_

Dimly, he was aware that he was going to die, as no man could merrily thumb his nose at fate so many times without fate becoming offended and showing him the error of his ways, but he didn't care. Had never cared, had never been afraid of it. Kept on fighting the mermaids as they dragged him out into deeper water, toward the tide race that led to Skull Rock, where he'd had many an infamous encounter with them and the Lost Ones and the Indians. Stake him up and leave him to drown, slowly and with relish, so they could watch every instant of his struggle as the water crept up past his chest and then past his head, drag his skeleton down to the depths to game with his bones. He only hoped that he could –

And then, out of the corner of his eye, Killian caught a flash of light, screaming toward the lagoon as fast as it could go. _Tink._ The little fairy buzzed ferociously back and forth above the scene of the battle, flinging fistfuls of pixie dust that turned into silver knives, turning the water crimson with blood as the mermaids screamed and flailed, a tangled, seething knot, and he was able to regroup himself for a second attack. The sea out here was fathomlessly deep, he could drift forever on the trackless Neverland waters, but he did not intend to. He turned around, kicked hard, and swam toward a shallow barrier reef that lay just below the surface, where he'd learned not to take the _Roger_ lest he tear her hull out on the coral. He scrambled up, soaking wet, alone in the middle of the rolling waves, braced his feet, and prepared for his last stand.

Mermaids crawled at him from every side, eyes wild and white and furious. He kicked one in the face and slashed at another, unable to keep them off; they would overwhelm him by sheer force of numbers. Then one of them launched out from behind, landing on his back, and he slammed to his knees, ripped off his perch and plunging into the sea again, choking on the salt that burned his lungs. The water closed over his head. Darkness reached for him. He fixed Emma's face in his mind, determined to die only while remembering how much he loved her –

And then, from underneath, something grabbed him, forcing him up and up until he broke the surface again, coughing and spluttering. Salt stung his open wounds as he was shoved up onto the reef, hook striking sparks as he struggled to hang on. The mermaids hanging onto his legs had gone, the ocean empty. Somehow, impossibly, he had been saved. But _who –_

Then, turning his head, he saw her. The strange mermaid he'd seen at his first meeting with them, where he convinced them to mend the _Roger._ The one with the blue eyes like his, who didn't speak. She was still holding him up on the rock, shielding him, as he sucked air and stared at her. "Who – " he croaked. "Who are you, lass?"

She shook her head, then reached over and unclicked his hook from its brace. While he was still wondering if she was about to stab him with it, she used it instead to scratch a name in the soft coral. _Ariel._

"Ariel?" Killian repeated. He had the odd feeling that it was supposed to mean something to him, but it didn't. "My – my son. David. He. . . where is he?"

Ariel stared back at him for the longest moment. Then with a fluke of her tail, she launched herself off the rock and dove, vanishing beneath the surface without a trace.

Killian stared at the place where she'd been, marked only by a fading trail of bubbles, and cursed himself. He understood bloody nothing of what had just happened, why she had saved him from her vengeful sisters, or if this was only a prelude to a far more spectacular end. He was stranded on the reef several hundred yards out from shore, and if he tried to swim back, he would be set on by the mermaids again. And couldn't leave without David, without knowing, even as his mind reeled frantically through all the things that the crocodile, the Lost Ones, Pan, or anyone else could have done to Emma by now. Or perhaps –

Killian's ruminations, however, were shattered at that moment as Ariel resurfaced, with his son in her arms. David's eyes were closed, skin ghostly pale, almost translucent, face serene, dark hair dripping crystalline in the moonlight. His chest did not rise or fall, and no pulse beat in his neck. He was motionless, lifeless, as if carved from ivory.

"Oh gods." Killian could hear himself utter it, but barely knew if it was him, if it was his voice, if it was anything. It sounded as if it was coming from something else, beside his ear. He reached out with fumbling hands as Ariel gave David to him, cradled the limp little body against his chest, rocking back and forth in agony, trying to weep, but he couldn't even breathe. "No. No. No. _No. No. No. No_. _"_

* * *

It burned. It _burned._ _It burned._

Emma tried to scream, but couldn't, as Pan's blade drove into her. She should be dying, but she wasn't, not exactly. It was a magical weapon, it was killing the grownup, and instead she could feel the child screaming –

She was falling, falling, _falling._ A dark howling nothingness, racing toward a castle on a cliff. A prince with a baby in his arms, fighting to reach a wardrobe, but not getting there. All of them swept through on a torrent of unholy magic, to this new world, this place created from the curse, Storybrooke. Gold was there. Gold had been guarding them. And then –

_She remembered._

_She remembered everything._

David. Mary Margaret. _The Nolans._ Their old Victorian mansion on a quiet street. Emma Nolan, raised by her loving parents in the happy ending they were never supposed to have, Regina always held uneasily at bay, Graham – she had known him all her life – _Graham, no._ Storybrooke High School. Waiting tables at Granny's with Ruby. Applying to Boston College, getting in, so excited. First year like a house afire. And the second. Where she'd met Killian, in his history class. Gone to Storybrooke with him. Eaten Regina's turnover. Poisoned. Nearly died. Into the hospital. And forgotten everything. Become Emma. Emma Swan.

She knew the rest of the story from there.

The blade in her was still burning. Far away, there was someone screaming her name. Then it faded, everything faded, and all she saw was white.


	39. Chapter 39

The first thing Emma Swan saw was the stars.

They were unlike anything earthly or mortal. Picked out in luminescent brilliance against a carapace of velvet blackness, burning white and gold and violet, iridescent fistfuls of fire. The stars, in fact, were all that was getting through; she couldn’t process the rest of the world. Nothing was working properly. She was clumsy and slow and stupid, the commands from her brain taking an age to reach her petrified extremities, as she struggled to sit up, sand shedding from her hair and shoulders and skin, glittering crystalline, sharp enough to draw blood. This place, this fucking place, what was she even –

_Neverland._

Emma froze as it began to rush back, in wave upon paralyzing wave. She stared out at the horizon, trying to understand how she could be alive – she remembered being stabbed, she remembered that very distinctly, the scorching pain of the blade biting through flesh and bone and sinew. She touched her heart gingerly. No, that definitely hadn’t been a dream, but she wasn’t supposed to sit up from that, she wasn’t supposed to be alive. She felt weak and shaken and watery, but indisputably not dead, and her last memory before losing consciousness was of total mayhem, of Pan – Henry – stabbing her, Lost Boys swarming everywhere, Neal and Gold trying to fight them off and Killian fleeing in desperate search of –

 _David_. Emma lurched to her feet. She was unclear on the precise details, but she didn’t need them. All she knew was that her son was out there somewhere, in the fiendish grasp of the mermaids, and she needed to get to him, needed to find him, needed to save him. She was going, she was going right now. Until it became apparent that her legs weren’t moving at all, that she was as stuck as if she was mired knee-deep in tar, and her balance gave out and she fell.

Emma landed hard, knocking her wind out. Her head ached, her ears rang, and she could feel more blood trickling from the wound in her chest. Whatever infernal magic was woven in Pan’s blade was clearly not meant to kill her outright, but it had stolen all her strength, and she could feel her memories flitting like exotic birds in her head, scattering to the winds even as she struggled to hang on. No, she couldn’t let them get away from her again. Not her parents, her mother and father, her home, her family, her life, everything that she was or ever had been. Could not let Neverland take it from her. Not when the lost girl had finally been found.

She blinked hard, struggling to bring the world into focus. Could see two figures sitting further down the beach – one large, one smaller – and a dull, desperate hope seized hold of her. Gasping in pain, crawling on all fours, she dragged herself down the sand toward them.

As she drew nearer, she realized that it wasn’t David or Killian. It was Neal. He was cradling Wendy Darling in his arms as she gazed up at the night sky with a serene look on her face, the dazzling stars reflecting in her eyes. “It’s beautiful,” Emma heard her sigh. “I never noticed that before.”

“Wendy.” Neal’s voice cracked. He sounded like a twelve-year-old boy again, desperate, pleading, furious. “You can’t die. You _can’t.”_

“Nonsense,” the old lady said faintly. “Where else would I? I always had to come back here, you know. And so did you. It’s all right, Bae. It’s all right.”

Neal clearly did not think that this was the case in the slightest. He bent over her, saying nothing, until at last he mumbled, “It’s not _fair.”_

Wendy smiled faintly. Her gaze moved to Emma, still crawling toward them, and she managed to reach out a thin, trembling hand. “Ah, my dear. Tell Killian. . . tell Killian that I always wanted the best for him, won’t you? For both of you.”

“I don’t understand.” Emma’s voice was thin. “Where’s H – Pan? Where are the Lost Boys? What just happened?”

“They’re gone.” Wendy coughed. “After he stabbed you. . . Pan couldn’t endure it.  You and he were always connected, he always had his existence in you. You created him, Emma. You always did. When you had forgotten who you were, he lived in you, a phantom of what you had been. To drive that blade into you was to drive it into himself.”

“He. . .” Emma couldn’t process what she was hearing. “He’s dead?”

Wendy did not answer, and in that silence, Emma could hear herself insisting to the dubious doctors that he existed, that he was real. How could he not be? Henry – he’d come to her, wanted her to come with him. But that memory of giving birth to him had only been created when she had lost every knowledge of her past, in the badlands of delirium, in a coma after eating the poisoned turnover. But now she’d regained her memories, she’d come back to herself, she’d. . .

She felt as torn and numb as if someone had reached into her chest and ripped her heart out. She just sat staring at her hands, unable to utter a word. _Henry._ She had never known him, but the loss was as terrible as if she had. Finally she croaked, “But the Home Office. . . the people attacking Storybrooke, we have to get back, they still could get through and. . .”

“No, dear,” Wendy said gently. “Don’t you see? Home Office. . . it was them. Pan and the Lost Ones. It was them all along. It started here, and was spread between the realms by anyone who was interested in the profits. All of it was meant to one end, to find you, and to bring you here by any means possible. They thought they would have to attack Storybrooke to do it, that they would have to go up against the curse, but then you came here of your own volition instead. Cora, Mordred, all those unpalatable sorts. . . they want _power,_ your power, and they thought that you would destroy Pan and unleash the true dark heart of this island’s magic.”

“But I did.” Emma’s voice was an agonized whisper. “If what you said. . . when he stabbed me, it destroyed him as well. . . then I did exactly what they wanted me to.”

“No, dear,” Wendy said again. “You didn’t. They wanted you to destroy him in vengeance, in anger and hate, poisoned past all recognition. That’s why they worked together, why they had to plant Home Office spies from the Enchanted Forest to Earth, any way they thought they could catch you. Pan wanted you here to belong to him. Cora and Mordred and the others wanted you here to release the full wrath of Neverland.  But you did neither. You loved, Emma. You _loved_ , and you trusted. Even if you barely realized you did. You didn’t stop him. You. . . you were _strong,_ and you did it. . . by. . . yourself. And that. . . that means. . . _everything.”_

Wendy smiled, clearly content that this explained it. “So you see,” she concluded. “It wasn’t the darkness you unleashed after all. It’s changing. All of the magic. Everything. They’re gone. They can’t stand it. And Storybrooke is safe, I promise.”

“But. . .” Emma stared at her, close to panic. “How do we get out of here? How can we leave?”

“You. . . will know. But it’s time. Even here. For. . . me.”

Neal clutched at her. “Wendy? Wendy!”

“Shh, Baelfire,” Wendy Darling whispered. Her eyes were wider than ever, her face utterly calm. “All children must grow up. And all of them must die. It’s the only way of things. It’s all right.”

With that, she smiled up at both of them, her fingers closing light as a butterfly around Neal’s, as she settled back more comfortably and sighed in contentment, as if a great victory had been won, as if in the silence of the night, she could hear a far-off music, the first baby’s laugh shattering into a thousand pieces, the brightness of sea and sky and stars, sand running softly through a glass. And then, in the ultimate and perfect defiance of the land that never let you grow up, never let you heal, never let you move on, she quietly closed her eyes and died.

Neal let out a howl of grief. Emma watched him awkwardly, not certain what she should do. She did not feel any particular inclination to move closer and comfort him; there was too much sordid, unmended history between them. She wanted to ask him about the marijuana setup back at BC, why he’d framed her and run – and wondered suddenly if it had something to do with August Booth, who’d said he had something to do with the reason why Neal had left. But this didn’t seem like the time for that conversation, or the place. His father, a dread dark sorcerer, was still out there somewhere; plainly they had parted on bad terms, and if Gold was in Storybrooke, and August wanted her to go there, and Neal didn’t. . .

Emma thought she might be facing a sudden epiphany, one that felt as if the bottom was falling out of her stomach. _It makes sense,_ she realized, numb and stunned. _It all makes sense._ Some of it she didn’t yet know, other parts she was only guessing at, but all she wanted now was to try to find some way, any way, to put her family back together. Break the curse and make her parents remember, finally bring an end to the ignorance and fear and darkness. Make something new. And if it was true in the least degree what Wendy had said, that Neverland had changed because of her, because of what she’d done. . . she’d created Pan when she forgot herself, and snuffed him out of existence when she remembered. . .

At that moment, however, her meditations were cut joltingly short as she caught sight of a tall dark figure moving closer through the moonlight, carrying something small and pitiful, a bundle of rags, in its arms. It – no, he – took every step as if it was his last, as dead and aimless as if he could see no point to it, could have been going anywhere, doing anything. And –

Emma’s heart turned over. She registered dimly that there was an actual sound to the world crashing down around your ears, that it was driving her to her feet and making her stagger down the beach beneath the blazing stars, heedless of her wound or her exhaustion or anything but them. Until she reached Killian, his black leather soaked and dripping with saltwater, and his blue eyes like hollow wounds in his face as he stared at her over the lifeless body of their son.

“David.” Emma’s voice sounded ridiculous to her own ears. Too flat, too faint. She reached out a hand, as if touching him would somehow make it real, or would make her wake up. “David.”

“I’m sorry.” Killian’s voice was even fainter. It sounded as if he was only barely holding himself together. “Emma. . . I’m sorry. . . I’m sorry. . . I’m sorry. . . I was too late.”

Emma didn’t answer. Her eyes couldn’t leave David. Her kid. Right there, in Killian’s arms. Returned to them at last. _Too late._ Her _son_. The exuberant, uncontrollably energetic six-year-old, the kid who loved Peter Pan and Neverland so much. Had heard Killian confess (albeit in jest) to being Captain Hook, and been utterly delighted. _I always knew you were real._ The kid who wanted to be a pirate for Halloween, who loved playing baseball with his friends. Was she supposed to sacrifice him too? Lose Henry _and_ David as the price for regaining her memories, changing the magic of Neverland, realizing the curse, ending the darkness? _Too much. I don’t want to pay it. Too much. No. No. No._ Her skull was starting to echo. She shook and staggered. She felt as if the world was falling out from under her. She felt as if it was already over.

“David,” Emma whispered. Her voice cracked on a sob as she reached out for him, her arms wrapping around him, Killian still holding on as well, the three of them enfolded in the first family hug they’d ever shared. Their foreheads rested together, both of them drawing those short, jerking breaths where your chest ached too badly to get enough air. Her bones were liquefying, turning to nothingness. She could not imagine anything, ever, being all right again.

As Emma and Killian stood there, holding each other up, she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye, casting an unearthly glow through the dark tangles of jungle. As it drew closer, she realized it was a woman, dressed in green and gold and leaves like Pan had been, blonde curls spilling over her shoulders. Her eyes were soft and sad, her face somehow familiar. She stepped down onto the beach and padded to them without a sound.

“Who.” Emma couldn’t get the words out. They were stuck in her chest like a ragged hunk of shrapnel. “Who are you?”

“It’s me,” the woman said quietly. “Tinkerbell.”

Emma did a double take. Killian glanced up, face the color of old bones, the rest of him barely looking better. “Tink?”

“Yes,” the fairy said. “Neverland’s dark magic had reduced me to what I was before. You. . . you freed me, Emma. Returned me to who I am. You did it.”

“I don’t _care!”_ Letting go of her son’s lifeless body at last, Emma spun around, eyes overflowing with furious tears. “I don’t care about this fucking place and its magic or whatever it was! It killed Henry, it killed David, it killed Wendy, it’s torn all of us apart! I want it. . . I want things to go back to the way they used to be, I want. . . it’s too late, and I. . .”

“No,” Tink said, speaking low and quickly. “No, it’s not. Here. Quick. Take this. Use it.”

Emma stared bleakly at the small glass vial, filled with what appeared to be grey ash, that the fairy was pressing into her hand. “The hell is this?”

“Lass. . .” Killian had caught on quicker than she had, was staring at Tink. “Are you. . .”

“Take it, Killian,” the fairy repeated stubbornly.  “Or I’ll go throw it into the sea. You have to believe, both of you. It’s hard. I know it is. But you have to.”

“Believe in what?” Emma couldn’t imagine wanting to.

“In yourself. In each other. In him.” Tink nodded at David. “You love him, don’t you?”

“Of course I love him!” Emma almost screamed, calmed only by Killian’s good hand cradling her head against his shoulder, drawing her closer to him, a bulwark against the storm. “He’s my son, I lost him, I. . . I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye, I. . .”

“Do it, then,” Tink whispered. “Say it.”

Emma’s throat folded in half. She knew the words wouldn’t come, couldn’t possibly come without breaking her, so she didn’t try. Instead, she leaned down and quietly, simply kissed David on the forehead, her tears falling thick and fast into his tousled dark hair.

And then, it happened. An invisible reverberation shuddered across the black horizon, shaking the dreamworld to its foundation. She saw Tink flick the vial, and felt the ash – the dust – fall on their shoulders, illuming her and Killian alike with an unearthly green glow. Felt a wind that was no mortal wind sweep them, all five of them, and then, as when the shadow came to find them in London, her feet leave the earth. Clung onto her family tighter as they began to rise into midair, as the dark island rapidly dwindled away beneath them, as the eastern horizon flushed with a violent stain of rosy sunlight, as the sky broke apart and the light fell on their faces, as a rainbow poured through a cloud and a frozen waterfall began to run free again, as they could see light and strength and glory pulsing into Neverland again from all sides. They were soaring faster as the clouds were torn apart, fairy dust still sparkling in the new morning, away over the trackless face of the waters. Saw it, and felt it as well.

Neal muttered an awed curse. Killian seemed struck speechless. And then, in her arms, Emma felt something, as she’d felt that first movement inside her, a flutter, an awakening, a new beginning. Against all odds. Against all probability. Against all death and darkness.

David Swan Jones grimaced, coughed up seawater, and squirmed, squinting against the burning sunlight, as his father made a desperate gasping sound and clutched at him, as his mother began to shake. He stared down at the awe-inspiring vista below, and his jaw dropped. But then he twisted his head around, saw Emma’s face, and frowned.

“Hey, Mom,” he whispered. “What’s wrong? Don’t cry.”

The wind blew harder, rushing across the face of the deep. The sky burned, the stars fell. The daylight came. They had to go.

And Emma Swan, at last, began to sob.

\-----------------

Leaving Neverland was not like entering it. Coming had been like falling, twisting and turning forever down a depthless dark chasm, and going was as fast and strong and visceral as if launched from a cannon, whistling and tearing through fathoms and fathoms of space and time, David in her arms as she pulled Killian with her and Neal rattled along behind, still holding onto Wendy. As Emma felt her ears popping, the great sick swoop in her stomach, as all kinds of cosmic detritus came and went, battering them from every side, until suddenly the world began to shudder back into its accustomed dimensions, like a piece of gum that had been stretched too far and finally broken. Then cold rain was pebbling their faces and shoulders like a sweet wet breath of life, and they were swooping out of the clouds as the grid of London unfolded beneath them, the iron-grey band of the Thames and the twin gothic towers of Westminster Abbey just a few hundred feet below. Then they were rocketing back into the fog, and just minutes later, drifting toward the open window of the Darling mansion in Kensington, alighting as gently as a leaf on the wind of all hallows. Returning the way you always returned from Neverland, in the stories, with the second star to the right shining in the morning sky.

Emma took a few running steps to regain her balance, still holding David tightly. They fetched up against the bedpost, and she hugged him again, lifting him off his feet as he wrapped his arms around her neck. “I’m glad you found me, Mom,” he told her. “I always knew you would.”

Emma, tears still spilling down her cheeks, sucked in a real breath and grinned at him, smoothing his hair. “You sure that wasn’t too much adventure for you, kid?” she managed weakly.

“Nah,” David said. “I wasn’t scared. But. . .” He glanced over at Killian questioningly. “I saw you. Right before the bad guys threw me into the. . . the thing. The green whirlpool. You were trying to stop them. And you came to find me too. That was really nice of you.”

“I. . .” Killian exchanged a glance with Emma, and must have read her answer in her eyes. It clearly took every drop of courage for him to say what he did. “It’s. . . not about being nice, lad.”

David looked confused. “It’s not?”

“I. . . no. I’m not a nice man. I’m not a good man. When I told you I was Captain Hook, back at Thanksgiving. . . I wasn’t lying. But I had to come for you. I. . .” Killian took a shaky breath, and Emma wondered if it was the first time in three hundred years that he had been terrified. “David. I should have told you earlier, but your mum didn’t want it. I’m. . . I’m your father, lad.”

There was a long, towering silence. Neal glanced away, a dark, troubled expression on his face. Emma held her breath, still holding onto her son, running her fingers through his hair, terrified that he would pull away, shout at her. Then David, slowly, started to grin.

“You’re my dad?” he asked. “Really?”

“Really.” Killian’s voice broke.

“I. . . have a dad? Captain _Hook_ is my dad?”David turned around in Emma’s arms to stare. “But why. . . why would you ever want to leave us behind?”

A convulsive shudder ran through Killian’s entire body. Then he walked forward, dropped to his knees, and took his son’s two hands in his one. “Never,” he whispered. “Never again. Not so long as there is breath in my body. Not so long as there is time on this earth. Never so long as the stars are in the sky. You and your mother were taken from me once. Never. Never again.”

David looked at him a long moment, then nodded solemnly. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

Killian heaved another heartbroken breath, then got to his feet and turned to Neal. “Bae,” he said quietly. “Let me take Wendy to her family. Please. At least let me say goodbye.”

Neal flinched. “Don’t call me that.”

“I. . . Neal.” Killian swallowed. “Please.”

Another hideous, living silence. Then finally, Neal jerked his head. “All right,” he said curtly. “If you bring the kid with you. And if I get to talk to Emma.”

Killian paused, then nodded, strode across the floor, and lifted Wendy’s body into his arms, beckoning David to his side. The boy trotted over, and they vanished through the nursery door, which swung closed behind them. And then, at last, Emma had no defense. She turned to look at her ex-boyfriend, the one to whom she had always imagined having so much to say. Accusations, demanding explanations, anything. But as she looked at him, nothing came to mind. Nothing at all.

Finally, Neal was the one to break the silence. “So,” he said. “In Neverland. When you were talking to. . . to Pan. You said. You said you were his mother.”

Emma had been afraid of this. She briefly debated denying it, then decided that it would be a travesty to Henry’s memory, whoever and what he had been, however and wherever and for what time he had existed, in this world or any. Silently, she nodded.

“Is he. . . was he. . . was he mine?” Neal’s voice roughened. “Damn it, Emma, was he mine?”

“I don’t know what he was!” Barely checked, her tears started to fall again. “He was created somehow, when I was in the hospital after I lost my memory. I ate a poisoned turnover and I forgot everything, and when I woke up, I was convinced that I’d had a baby. Everyone else said I hadn’t, but I knew. He came to find me, eventually. In Oxford. He said his name was. . . was Henry, and he only existed in Neverland, with the rest of the lost boys, the unlived children.”

“You. . . you were in the hospital?” Neal blinked. “I didn’t. . .”

“No,” Emma said coldly. “You didn’t know. You set me up for your crime and you left me, and you didn’t try to say a word to me for ten years afterward. I didn’t even know if you were still alive. You didn’t know anything about it. Don’t pretend you do. There’s nothing left of _us,_ Neal. There’s only the past. That’s what Neverland does. It doesn’t want you to grow up. It wants you to stay that broken child forever, that lonely, abandoned, lost girl.Well, you know what? I didn’t. I remembered. I defeated it. And I’m not going back.”

“I. . .” Neal’s face was pale. “Emma, I’m sorry, all right? I’m so sorry for what I did to you. It was the biggest regret of my life. But it was that August guy. He talked about the curse, about you. And I. . . my dad, I couldn’t have faced my. . .”

“Save it.” Emma turned on her heel. “I’ll forgive you, eventually. Maybe. But that’s all.”

“Wait! I just. .  God damn it, Emma! Did I lose a son? I see you with that David kid, with _him,_ and I. . . fine, I can’t change that. I just want to know! What there was! What we lost!”

Emma took a shaking breath. “Yes,” she said at last. “Henry was yours. But it doesn’t matter now. He’s gone. It’s over. I’m sorry for your loss, and for Wendy as well. I hope you have a good life, Neal Cassidy. I hope you find your own happy ending. It’s not mine. It’s not with me.”

And with that, not looking back, never looking back, she left.

\-------------------

Everything after that was a blur. There were the Darlings to deal with, arrangements to make, confused explanations to tender, and her all-consuming need to get back to Storybrooke and see if Wendy’s dying promise had been true, if the so-called Home Office was gone and the town was all right. Emma didn’t know where Gold was, if he was still in Neverland, or was still looking for Neal, or where in the future he might reappear. She didn’t trust that he’d stop trying to hurt Killian, or that their little family could ever truly be safe, but that was a fear for another day. For now, against all odds, they’d found each other. They were together.

She wanted all the time in the world with David. She wanted to grieve for Henry. She wanted to spend hours, days, months in bed with Killian, learning him, whether anew or for the first time. He, for his part, insisted on taking her to the hospital to have them see to the stab wound Pan had given her, and Emma grudgingly agreed. She had no idea how to explain how she’d gotten it, however, and had the feeling that the doctors suspected she was involved in some kind of organized crime; at least they didn’t call the Met on her. But there wasn’t much they could do for it, as it was knitting itself, healing at a speed that was quite unnatural, and she ended up checking out after a few hours so they didn’t get even more suspicious. Then she and Killian returned to the Darling house, whereupon they received quite a surprise. Granny Wendy’s last will and testament had left him something: something, in fact, to the tune of several million pounds. She desired that he use the money to purchase a rowhouse in Kensington, just a few doors down from this one. At the bottom, in her spidery, old-fashioned handwriting, she had added something else. _After all, if anywhere, that is where he will find you._

“Where . . . where _who_ will find us?” Emma repeated blankly. “Killian. . . how much did Wendy know about us? About Neverland, and. . . and Pan?”

“I. . . don’t know,” he admitted, looking rattled. “But I imagine it was a great deal.”

Emma drew in a deep breath, still dazed by the fact of this, of money, of provision. Enough to buy them a real place to live. Enough to make good on what he had promised her, on that Thanksgiving morning in the snowbound cabin. _I love you, Emma Swan. Marry me. Let's take our son and go home._ She knew that both of them were hearing it now.

Throat too tight to speak, she put a hand on his arm. “All right,” she whispered. “All right. But one last thing.”

He met her eyes. “Storybrooke.”

“Yes.” This was it. This was everything. “Storybrooke.”

\----------------

They left London that evening. Wendy’s funeral was in a week, and they planned to return in time, but first, the Swan-Jones family had unfinished business to attend. They caught a cab to the Thames waterfront, David holding tightly to the hands of both his parents, as they walked down the pier in the deepening twilight. To the pirate ship that was still moored up, rocking at anchor, at the end.

“Oh wow!” David’s eyes went round. “Is that the _Jolly Roger?”_

“Aye, lad.” Killian looked unutterably fragile as he smiled down at his son. “Look like what you imagined, does it?”

“It’s cool,” David said proudly. “Does it have cannons?”

“Aye,” Killian said again, and then added at once, sternly, “But you are _not_ allowed to touch them, or I’ll skin you bloody alive, hear me?”

David looked quite taken aback at this, glancing to Emma for support, but she only raised an amused eyebrow. “Sorry, buddy,” she said. “Around here, what he says, goes.”

The three of them went on board, and Killian and Emma got ready to set sail (the _Roger’s_ enchanted ability to take care of much of this herself was of endless wonderment and delight to David, who made an utter nuisance of himself running around deck and trying to catch the ropes). But when they were ready to cast off, Killian held up his hand. Then he took a deep breath, reached over, and unclicked his hook from its brace. He stared at it a long moment, then whipped his arm back and threw. In a glittering silver parabola, it flew out to the darkness. Then, with barely a splash, it sank beneath the surface.

Killian took another long, shuddering breath, then turned to them. “I couldn’t keep it,” he said in a rush. “Bloody couldn’t. I’d rather be a one-handed man, I’d rather be Killian Jones as he is, than risk turning back into him again, into Hook. After what I did to both of you, after what I did to myself. . . I. . . I know I’m damaged goods. I just hope you won’t – ”

The rest of his speech was resoundingly cut off as Emma took two swift steps across the deck, pulled him into her arms, and kissed him so hard that they saw stars. He gasped into her mouth, and she whimpered into his, as they rocked together, as they toppled against the mast, as she held onto him as fiercely as she’d never held onto anyone in her life and he clutched her back, as they touched noses, browsed lips, kissed and kissed and both shook silently with sobs, until David began to make loud noises of disgust and they broke apart. “You know, lad,” Killian said, wiping his eyes. “You’re going to have to get used to me kissing your mother at every bloody opportunity. Now and for the rest of my life.”

“Whatever,” David said, looking so arch that both Emma and Killian had to laugh. “Can we go? It’s getting cold. And besides, if you don’t have your hook, how are you going to steer?”

“Funny you should ask.” Killian turned to him. “That’s what you’re for, mate.”

David paused a moment longer, and then grinned. “Aye aye,” he said cheerily. “Cap’n.”

\---------------

Once they were well out in the Atlantic, and the _Roger_ could tend herself the rest of the way, Killian and David came below to the cabin, where Emma was sitting on the bed waiting for them. She didn’t say a word, just held out her arms, and both of them came to her, all three of them curling up together under the heavy quilt. She felt as if her heart would break with joy, and grief. She couldn’t stop seeing Henry’s face in her head. Couldn’t stop wondering what might have been. Didn’t know if that poisoned thorn would ever come out. Just knew she had to keep at it, somehow. Keep living. Keep hoping. Keep holding on.

David fell asleep quickly, cuddled between his parents, and Killian and Emma just lay there, side by side, listening to him breathing. After a while, they began to kiss quietly above his head, over and over, light touches in the darkness, pressing their faces to each other, simply in awe. She never wanted the night to end. She wanted it to end. She wanted the dawn. She wanted the morning. She wanted so much that it hurt her. As if she too was coming to life at last.

Both of them dozed off, eventually, and woke when the light turned grey. Careful not to wake David, who was still out like a rock, they climbed up to the deck together, Emma steering the ship while Killian checked their headings on the charts. According to his calculations, they should be nearly on top of Storybrooke, but Emma’s pulse began to pick up as she stared along the empty, desolate New England coast, nary a town in sight. “It’s here? You said it was here!”

“Supposed to be,” Killian admitted, a frown creasing his dark brows as he used his mouth to pull his telescope open and scan the rocks. “But we didn’t have the compass, we can’t be sure of finding our way back through the. . .”

And with that, suddenly, his frown deepened – and turned thoughtful, hopeful, true. “Love,” he said. “Kiss me.”

Emma stared at him. “What? Now is not the time for – ”

“Oh, bloody hell. Just do it. Trust me.”

She hesitated, but only for a moment. Stepping forward, lashing a loop of rope around the wheel, she took his face in his hands and looked into his eyes, nearly unable to stand the deep, aching burn of joy in her heart and soul, and how neatly they fit together. After all the days apart, the years. The empty nights, the lonely mornings. How it seemed impossible that they should have found their way home, to here, at last. Here. Together. Now and always. _Home._

And then, leaning in, she kissed him.

She could sense it, as their lips met. The same sort of wind that had torn through Neverland when she’d kissed David, the sense of the world come undone, a power greater than evil and death, than time itself, taking hold. It swept through them, rocking and snapping the sails of the _Jolly Roger,_ glittering like the fairy dust, shining through the clouds even brighter than the sun. Startled, Emma pulled back and stared at him. “The hell was that?”

Killian was grinning, but tears were standing in his eyes. “That, lass,” he said, very softly. “That was true love’s kiss.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but then she utterly forgot. Something was happening. Something was peeling back the skin of the sky in great strips, as if a painter was filling in the world. Something was shattering, groaning, coming undone. Falling apart, crashing, as they held onto each other and stared. As Storybrooke, Maine, sketched itself into existence on the coast where a moment ago there had been nothing, as the Dark Curse breathed its last and broke, once and forever, into oblivion.

Emma turned to Killian, shocked. He only kissed her on the forehead and whispered, “Go wake David, love.”

Still too stunned to say a word, she went belowdecks, shaking her son awake gently and scooping him up to carry back topside, as Killian was guiding the _Roger_ into the docks, as people were emerging from every house and shop and street to stare, to shout, to look for each other, to run to each other’s arms, or to tell each other they hadn’t forgotten. Some great chaotic mess she didn’t know anything of, and momentarily felt terrified, that old urge to turn and run. But as soon as it came, it went. This was it. This was her life now. This was her place.

Killian berthed the _Roger,_ tied it fast with Emma’s help, and the three of them stepped ashore, up into the street. Neither of them were entirely sure what to do, where to go, although David wanted to know what had just happened and why everyone seemed to be crying. Neither of them could answer. All they could do was look, and look, and look.

Emma, of course, saw them first. Emma was the one who remembered. Who saw David and Mary Margaret Nolan running toward her as fast as they could, who had to stop dead in her tracks, who felt her heart break. Who almost went to her knees, who could only see them, see her parents, could only hear the word, the name they were calling. Just one word. Hers. Her name.

 _Emma_. Over and over. The most beautiful thing on earth. _Emma. Emma. Emma._


	40. Epilogue

No matter how tightly she latched the bedroom window at night, Emma always found it just that bit ajar, the barest breath, in the morning. That, in itself, wasn't too surprising. This was an old house, a stately brownstone on a posh, tree-lined London street, the place they'd bought with the money Wendy Darling had left Killian in her bequest, as the old lady had wanted. Emma still wasn't quite used to driving on the wrong side of the road or the fact that she couldn't even go around the corner to the takeaway without her umbrella, but nonetheless, it was starting to feel like home. David had started private school and was taking full advantage of his role as the new, worldly American kid in the class, and Killian was commuting to Oxford, where he'd gotten back his position as tutor and professor. The two books on the history of pirates and the literary genealogy of fairytales that he'd written in Neverland were in the process of being edited into actual academic monographs, and would eventually be published to further his career. The three of them – soon, the four – were finally learning how to live together, as a family.

Sometimes, Emma wondered if she was justified in believing that this was it. Her happy ending. Not that it had been easy. After the curse broke on Storybrooke and she was reunited with her parents, when there was a confused explanation on where they all came from in the Enchanted Forest and what had happened. . . as glad as they were to find their way back to each other, it didn't change the fact that she had been alone and struggling and heartbroken for almost ten years. She wasn't sure if she could ever forgive Regina for giving her the poisoned turnover, and her parents didn't know if they could either, though Mary Margaret ( _Snow White,_ whatever) believed they should. The mayor ( _Evil Queen,_ yeah) had been deposed by the townsfolk, and was being held indefinitely. Gold still hadn't been seen since he vanished in Neverland. Cora, Mordred, Greg, and Tamara hadn't been heard from either, and there was no way to know if the intricate apparatus that Home Office had put together would be decapitated now that its leader was gone. Even further, the Storybrooke citizens couldn't venture out of town. There was still something keeping them there, and they needed to find out what, or why.

Hence, that was part of the reason that Emma had moved to London with Killian. She needed a little space from her parents; she was a grown woman, not the broken girl they'd left behind in a Boston hospital, and sometimes the reunion felt almost claustrophobic. But she _had_ promised frequent visits back to Storybrooke, hopefully with the last piece of the puzzle in hand. Killian was continuing to research esoteric curse lore, and Emma herself had hoped that Wendy's cryptic final instruction – _after all, if anywhere, that is where he will find you –_ might mean that there was some kind of clue hidden here. Some way to make it all make sense.

She still dreamed about Henry. She still saw his face in her mind, at unlooked-for moments. Couldn't help wondering if the fact that the window wouldn't latch might mean something. Hadn't Peter Pan, in the story, returned every night to peer in, hoping for it to be open? Was he watching her even now, in this new life with a new family? She and Killian were blissfully engaged, but the wedding hadn't yet been scheduled, what with everything else that was going on. With their second child due in four months, it was liable to wait even further. Maybe it was selfish of her, but she definitely wanted to fit into her wedding dress.

Emma glanced down at her stomach with a rueful smile. The doctor said it was going to be a girl. David was up the wall with excitement about having a sister, and Killian downright terrified about having to be father to a daughter, and while she herself was thrilled, she couldn't help but wonder if she wanted it to be a boy. Not that it could replace Henry, not that she wanted to; she'd love her child whoever and whatever it was, for themselves. That didn't change the fact that she was, and remained, haunted by the memory. By the ghost. Forever what might have been.

At last, she shook her head. Stepped forward to the window in the master bedroom, open over the misty London morning. Fall had clad the trees in gold and nipped the air with chill, and she could feel it on her face. She was going to pick David up from school later this afternoon, and they'd take the Tube up to Oxford to meet Killian for dinner. He had a flat there, so they'd stay for the weekend and enjoy exploring the historic city and bucolic English countryside. He could tell her what his research might have found. If they were any closer to any of the answers.

As she reached for the latch, though, Emma hesitated. Then, before she could ask herself what she was doing, instead of drawing the window shut, she shoved it open with both hands.

Nothing happened. No rush of magic, no wind over the waters, no blazing light, no moment of epiphany and realization. Just that. Just a faint, stupid hope. Nothing that mattered. Nothing really.

Emma let out a long sigh and turned away, stepping out into the hall. She'd go downstairs and have a second breakfast; five months pregnant and she was started eating like a hobbit. Halfway down the stairs, however, she heard a knock at the door.

She stopped, frowning. They weren't expecting anyone, as far as she knew. Or a package. Could be just a door-to-door salesman, although you didn't usually get those either in a neighborhood like this. She frowned, pulled her sweater closer around her shoulders – she could still feel that draft from upstairs, seeping through the house – and went into the foyer. Pulled the door open. "Can I help you?" she started automatically –

– and then looked –

_and no it couldn't possibly_

Wendy Darling had died in Neverland. Had wanted them to buy a house here, _because that is where he will find you._ Had known far more than she had ever told about the story she had always been part of. After all, Emma and Killian had wagered their entire hope of getting to Neverland, on Pan knowing where to find the Darlings in London, to always return there. And if so. . . if Emma had created Henry herself, had opened the window now instead of closing it, had no reason why, if Wendy's life had been given to Neverland's transformed magic, she couldn't create him again –

"Hi," said the boy standing on the front step. He grinned. "My name's Henry. I'm your son. I'm here to find you, Emma. You and Neal. And you know. Pan always gets what he wants."


End file.
